29.3: Events of World War I

29.3.1: The Alliances

Learning Objective

Name the members of the two alliances that clashed in WWI

Key Points

• Starting directly after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Great Powers of Europe began to forge complex alliances to maintain a balance of power and peace.
• This process began with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria and the Quadruple Alliance signed by United Kingdom, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, both formed in 1815 and aimed at maintaining a stable and conservative vision for Europe.
• Throughout the rest of the 19th century, various treaties and alliances were formed, including the German-Austrian treaty (1879) or Dual Alliance; the addition of Italy to the Germany and Austrian alliance in 1882, forming the “Triple Alliance”; the Franco-Russian Alliance (1894); and the “Entente Cordiale” between Britain and France (1904), which eventually included Russia and formed the Triple Entente.
• The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, which were renewed several times leading up to World War I, formed the two opposing sides of the war, with Italy moving over to ally with the Triple Entente after the start of the war and other nations pulled in over time.
• Historians debate how much these complex alliances contributed to the outbreak of the World War I, as the crisis between Austria-Hungary and Serbia could have been localized but quickly escalated into a global conflict despite the fact that some of the alliances, notably the Triple Entente, did not stipulate mutual defense in the case of an attack.

Key Terms

Central Powers

Consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria, this was one of the two main factions during World War I (1914–18). It faced and was defeated by the Allied Powers that formed around the Triple Entente, after which it was dissolved.

Triple Entente

The informal understanding linking the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente on August 31, 1907. The understanding between the three powers, supplemented by agreements with Japan and Portugal, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Kingdom of Italy.

Triple Alliance

A secret agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed on May 20, 1882, and renewed periodically until World War I. Germany and Austria-Hungary had been closely allied since 1879. Italy sought support against France shortly after it lost North African ambitions to the French. Each member promised mutual support in the event of an attack by any other great power.

During the 19th century, the major European powers went to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe, resulting in the existence of a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent by 1900. These began in 1815 with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. When Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. In October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria-Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria-Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879 called the Dual Alliance. This was a method of countering Russian influence in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken. This alliance expanded in 1882 to include Italy, in what became the Triple Alliance.

Bismarck held Russia at Germany’s side to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia. When Wilhelm II ascended to the throne as German Emperor (Kaiser), Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasized. For example, the Kaiser refused in 1890 to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. Two years later, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance. In 1904, Britain signed a series of agreements with France, the Entente Cordiale, and in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. While these agreements did not formally ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.

Interestingly, family connections pervaded these alliances, some crossing the boundaries of opposition. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were cousins.

Central Powers

The Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria – hence also known as the Quadruple Alliance – was one of the two main factions during World War I (1914–18). It faced and was defeated by the Allied Powers that formed around the Triple Entente, after which it was dissolved.

The Central Powers consisted of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the beginning of the war. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers later in 1914. In 1915, the Kingdom of Bulgaria joined the alliance. The name “Central Powers” is derived from the location of these countries; all four (including the other groups that supported them except for Finland and Lithuania) were located between the Russian Empire in the east and France and the United Kingdom in the west. Finland, Azerbaijan, and Lithuania joined them in 1918 before the war ended and after the Russian Empire collapsed.

The Central Powers’ origin was the Triple Alliance. Also known as the Triplice, this was a secret agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed on May 20, 1882, and renewed periodically until World War I. Germany and Austria-Hungary had been closely allied since 1879. Italy sought support against France shortly after it lost North African ambitions to the French. Each member promised mutual support in the event of an attack by any other great power. The treaty provided that Germany and Austria-Hungary would assist Italy if it was attacked by France without provocation. In turn, Italy would assist Germany if attacked by France. In the event of a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia, Italy promised to remain neutral.

Shortly after renewing the Alliance in June 1902, Italy secretly extended a similar guarantee to France. By a particular agreement, neither Austria-Hungary nor Italy would change the status quo in the Balkans without previous consultation. On November 1, 1902, five months after the Triple Alliance was renewed, Italy reached an understanding with France that each would remain neutral in the event of an attack on the other.

When Austria-Hungary found itself at war in August 1914 with the rival Triple Entente, Italy proclaimed its neutrality, considering Austria-Hungary the aggressor and defaulting on the obligation to consult and agree compensations before changing the status quo in the Balkans as agreed in 1912 renewal of the Triple Alliance. Following parallel negotiation with both Triple Alliance, aimed to keep Italy neutral, and the Triple Entente, aimed to make Italy enter the conflict, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. Carol I of Romania, through his Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu, also secretly pledged to support the Triple Alliance, but he remained neutral since Austria-Hungary started the war.

Allies of WWI

The Allies of World War I were the countries that opposed the Central Powers in the First World War.

The members of the original Entente Alliance of 1907 were the French Republic, the British Empire, and the Russian Empire. Italy ended its alliance with the Central Powers, arguing that Germany and Austria-Hungary started the war and that the alliance was only defensive in nature; it entered the war on the side of the Entente in 1915. Japan was another important member. Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and Romania were affiliated members of the Entente.

The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres defines the Principal Allied Powers as the British Empire, French Republic, Italy, and Japan. The Allied Powers comprised, together with the Principal Allied Powers, Armenia, Belgium, Greece, Hejaz, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serb-Croat-Slovene state, and Czechoslovakia.

The U.S. declaration of war on Germany in April 1917 was on the grounds that Germany had violated its neutrality by attacking international shipping and the Zimmermann Telegram sent to Mexico. It declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The U.S. entered the war as an “associated power,” rather than as a formal ally of France and the United Kingdom to avoid “foreign entanglements.” Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, neither declared war.

Web of Alliances

European diplomatic alignments shortly before the outbreak of WWI.

European diplomatic alignments shortly before the war, depicted as a series of Venn diagrams overlapping where treaties or support was established.

29.3.2: The Schlieffen Plan

Learning Objective

Describe the Schlieffen Plan

Key Points

• Alfred von Schlieffen was a German field marshal and strategist who served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906.
• Throughout his career, he developed several war plans for defensive, offensive, and counter-offensive campaigns, particularly with the French.
• The offensive campaign against France developed in 1905-06, later termed the “Schleiffen Plan,” focused on a brute force attack with sufficient soldiers.
• When Schlieffen retired, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger took over a Commander-in-Chief of the German army and at the outbreak of WWI, deployed a modified version of Schlieffen’s plan against the latter’s advice, which failed to achieve the decisive victory it promised.
• Various historians have contended that Moltke the Younger’s failure to follow the blueprint rather than German strategic miscalculation condemned the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare.

Key Terms

counter-offensive

A term used by the military to describe large-scale, usually strategic offensive operations by forces that successfully halt the enemy’s offensive while occupying defensive positions. It is executed after exhausting the enemy’s front line troops when their reserves are committed to combat and incapable of breaching defenses, but before the enemy has had the opportunity to assume new defensive positions.

Alfred von Schlieffen

A German field marshal and strategist who served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name lived on in the 1905-06 Schlieffen Plan, then Aufmarsch I, a deployment plan and operational guide for a decisive initial offensive campaign in a one-front war against the French Third Republic.

The Schlieffen Plan was the strategy for the German invasion of France and Belgium in August 1914. Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen was the Chief of the Imperial Army German General Staff from 1891 to 1906 and in 1905-06 devised a deployment plan for a winning offensive in a one-front war against the French Third Republic. After the war, German historians and other writers described the plan as a blueprint for victory. Some claimed the plan was ruined by Colonel-General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the Commander-in-Chief of the German army after Schlieffen retired in 1906 who was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (September 5-12, 1914).

Alfred von Schlieffen’s War Planning

The cornerstone of Schlieffen’s war planning was undoubtedly the strategic counter-offensive. Schlieffen was a great believer in the power of the attack in the context of the defensive operation. Germany’s smaller forces relative to the Franco-Russian Entente meant that an offensive posture against one or both was basically suicidal. On the other hand, Schlieffen placed great faith in Germany’s ability to use railways to launch a counter-offensive against a hypothetical French or Russian invasion force, defeat it, then quickly regroup and launch a counter-offensive.

Schlieffen also recognized the need for offensive planning, as failing to do so would limit the German Army’s capabilities. In 1897, Schlieffen developed a tactical plan that – acknowledging the German army’s limited offensive power and capacity for strategic maneuvers – basically amounted to using brute force to advance beyond the French defenses on the Franco-German border.

In 1905, Schlieffen developed what was truly his first plan for a strategic offensive operation, the Schlieffen plan Denkschrift (Schlieffen plan memorandum). This was designed for an isolated Franco-German war that would not involve Russia, calling for Germany to attack France.

However, the bulk of Schlieffen’s planning followed his personal preferences for the counter-offensive. Schlieffen’s war plans by the name of Aufmarsch II and Aufmarsch Ost continued to stress that Germany’s best hope for survival in a war with the Franco-Russian entente was a defensive strategy. This was reconciled with a very offensive tactical posture as Schlieffen held that the destruction of an attacking force required that it be surrounded and attacked from all sides until surrender, not merely repulsed as in a passive defense.

In August 1905 Schlieffen was kicked by a companion’s horse, rendering him incapable of battle at age 72. He began planning his retirement, but his successor was undetermined. A favourite of the Emperor was Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who became Chief of Staff after Schlieffen retired.

Moltke went on to devise Aufmarsch II Ost, a variant on Schlieffen’s Aufmarsch Ost designed for an isolated Russo-German war. Schlieffen seemingly tried to impress upon Moltke that an offensive strategy against France could only work in the event of an isolated Franco-German war, as German forces would otherwise be too weak to implement it. Knowing this, Moltke still attempted to apply the offensive strategy of Aufmarsch I West to the two-front war Germany faced in 1914 and Schlieffen’s defensive plan Aufmarsch II West. With too few troops to cross west of Paris let alone attempt a crossing of the Seine, Moltke’s campaign failed to breach the French “second defensive sector” and his troops were pushed back in the Battle of the Marne.

Post-war writing by senior German officers like Hermann von Kuhl, Gerhard Tappen, Wilhelm Groener, and official historians led by the former Lieutenant-Colonel Wolfgang Förster established a commonly accepted narrative that it was Moltke the Younger’s failure to follow the blueprint rather than German strategic miscalculation that condemned the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare instead of the quick, decisive conflict it could have been.

Deployment of the Schlieffen Plan

At the outbreak of World War I, 80% of the German army was deployed as seven field armies in the west according to the plan Aufmarsch II West. However, they were then assigned to execute the retired deployment plan Aufmarsch I West, from the Schlieffen Plan. This would march German armies through northern Belgium and into France in an attempt to encircle the French army and breach the “second defensive area” of the fortresses of Verdun and Paris and the Marne river.

Aufmarsch I West was one of four deployment plans available to the German General Staff in 1914. Each favored certain operations but did not specify exactly how those operations would be carried out, leaving the commanding officers to do so at their own initiative with minimal oversight. Aufmarsch I West, designed for a one-front war with France, was retired once it became clear it was irrelevant to the wars Germany could expect to face. Both Russia and Britain were expected to help France with no possibility of assistance from Italian or Austro-Hungarian troops. But despite its unsuitability and the availability of more sensible and decisive options, it retained a certain allure due to its offensive nature and the pessimism of pre-war thinking, which expected offensive operations to be short-lived, costly in casualties, and unlikely to be decisive. Accordingly, the Aufmarsch II West deployment was changed for the offensive of 1914, despite its unrealistic goals and the insufficient forces Germany had available for decisive success. Moltke took Schlieffen’s plan and modified the deployment of forces on the western front by reducing the right wing, the one to advance through Belgium, from 85% to 70%. In the end, the Schlieffen plan was so radically modified by Moltke that it could be more properly called the Moltke Plan.

Germany attacked Luxembourg on August 2 and on August 3 declared war on France. On August 4, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well. Britain declared war on Germany on the same day following an “unsatisfactory reply” to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.

In the end, Germany failed to avoid a long, two-front war, but had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and effectively halved France’s supply of coal. It had also killed or permanently crippled 230,000 more French and British troops than it itself had lost. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of a more decisive outcome.

Schlieffen Plan

One historian’s depiction of the Schlieffen Plan in red dotted lines.

A map of Europe in 1914 showing the possible route of the Schlieffen plan with red dotted lines.

29.3.3: Early Battles

Learning Objective

Summarize the general trends of the early battles of World War I

Key Points

• The Western Front was the main theatre of war during World War I. 
• Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gained military control of important industrial regions in France.
• These early German offensives include the Battle of Liège and the Battle of the Frontiers at the border of France.
• The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne, in which French and British troops were able to force a German retreat by exploiting a gap between the 1st and 2nd Armies, ending the German advance into France.
• The resulting “Race to the Sea” had both sides establishing a meandering line of fortified trenches stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France in an attempt to outflank the opposition.
• This line remained essentially unchanged for most of the war.

Key Terms

Battle of the Frontiers

A series of battles along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium shortly after the outbreak of World War I. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive interpretation of the German Aufmarsch II deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The Franco-British forces were driven back by the Germans, who were able to invade northern France. French and British rearguard actions delayed the German advance and thus allowed the French time to transfer their forces to the west to defend Paris, resulting in the First Battle of the Marne.

First Battle of the Marne

Also known as the Miracle of the Marne, this World War I battle fought in September 1914 resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army. The battle was the culmination of the German advance into France and pursuit of the Allied armies that followed the Battle of the Frontiers in August and reached the eastern outskirts of Paris. A counter-attack by six French field armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) along the Marne River forced the Imperial German Army to retreat northwest, leading to the Battle of the Aisne and the “Race to the Sea.” The battle was a victory for the Allies, but also set the stage for four years of trench warfare stalemate on the Western Front.

Siege of Liège

The opening engagement of the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of World War I. The attack on Liège city began on August 5, 1914, and lasted until August 16 when the last fort surrendered. The length of the siege of Liège may have delayed the German invasion of France by 4–5 days.

Battle of Liège

At the outbreak of the First World War, the German Army (consisting in the west of seven field armies) executed a modified version of the Schlieffen Plan, designed to quickly attack France through neutral Belgium before turning southwards to encircle the French Army on the German border. Belgium’s neutrality was guaranteed by Britain under the 1839 Treaty of London; this caused Britain to join the war at the expiration of its ultimatum at 11 p.m. GMT on August 4, 1914, when armies under German generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow attacked Belgium. Luxembourg had been occupied without opposition on August 2. The first battle in Belgium was the Siege of Liège, which lasted from August 5-16. Liège was well-fortified and surprised the German Army under von Bülow with its level of resistance. Nonetheless, German heavy artillery was able to demolish the main forts within a few days. Following the fall of Liège, most of the Belgian field army retreated to Antwerp, leaving the garrison of Namur isolated, with the Belgian capital, Brussels, falling to the Germans on August 20. Although the German army bypassed Antwerp, it remained a threat to their flank. Another siege followed at Namur, lasting from about August 20-23.

For their part, the French had five armies deployed on their borders. The pre-war French offensive plan, Plan XVII, intended to capture Alsace-Lorraine following the outbreak of hostilities. On August 7 the VII Corps attacked Alsace with the objective to capture Mulhouse and Colmar. The main offensive was launched on August 14 with 1st and 2nd Armies attacking toward Sarrebourg-Morhange in Lorraine. In keeping with the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans withdrew slowly while inflicting severe losses upon the French. The French advanced the 3rd and 4th Armies toward the Saar River and attempted to capture Saarburg, attacking Briey and Neufchateau, before being driven back. The French VII Corps captured Mulhouse after a brief engagement on August 7, but German reserve forces engaged them in the Battle of Mulhouse and forced a French retreat.

Battle of the Frontiers

The German Army swept through Belgium, executing civilians and razing villages. The application of “collective responsibility” against a civilian population further galvanized the allies, and newspapers condemned the German invasion and the army’s violence against civilians and property, together called the “Rape of Belgium.” After marching through Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Ardennes, the German Army advanced in the latter half of August into northern France, where they met the French Army under Joseph Joffre and the initial six divisions of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French. A series of engagements known as the Battle of the Frontiers ensued, which included the Battle of Charleroi and the Battle of Mons. In the former battle the French Fifth Army was almost destroyed by the German 2nd and 3rd Armies and the latter delayed the German advance by a day. A general Allied retreat followed, resulting in more clashes at the Battle of Le Cateau, the Siege of Maubeuge, and the Battle of St. Quentin (also called the First Battle of Guise).

First Battle of the Marne

The German Army came within 43 miles of Paris but at the First Battle of the Marne (September 6-12), French and British troops were able to force a German retreat by exploiting a gap that appeared between the 1st and 2nd Armies, ending the German advance into France. The German Army retreated north of the Aisne River, establishing the beginnings of a static western front that would last for the next three years. Following this German retirement, the opposing forces made reciprocal outflanking maneuvers known as the Race for the Sea and quickly extended their trench systems from the Swiss frontier to the North Sea. The territory occupied by Germany held 64 percent of French pig-iron production, 24 percent of its steel manufacturing, and 40 percent of the coal industry, dealing a serious blow to French industry.

Laying Trenches and the First Battle of Ypres

On the Entente side (those countries opposing the German alliance), the final lines were occupied by the armies of the Allied countries, with each nation defending a part of the front. From the coast in the north, the primary forces were from Belgium, the British Empire, and France. Following the Battle of the Yser in October, the Belgian army controlled a 22-mile length of West Flanders along the coast known as the Yser Front, along the Yser river and the Yperlee canal from Nieuwpoort to Boesinghe. Stationed to the south was the sector of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

From October 19 until November 22, the German forces made their final breakthrough attempt of 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. Heavy casualties were suffered on both sides but no breakthrough occurred. After the battle, Erich von Falkenhayn judged that it was no longer possible for Germany to win the war and on November 18 called for a diplomatic solution, but Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff disagreed.

Stabilization of the Western Front WWI

Map of the Western Front and the Race to the Sea, 1914

Map of the Western Front and the Race to the Sea, 1914

29.3.4: Trench Warfare

Learning Objective

Analyze why trench warfare became such a defining feature of World War I

Key Points

• Trench warfare is a type of land warfare with occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy’s small arms fire and sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I.
• Trench warfare occurs when a revolution in firepower is not matched by similar advances in mobility, as in the first two decades of the 20th century when advances allowed the creation of strong defensive systems that out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. 
• Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances. Artillery vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult.
• Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties, resulting in such major battles as the Battle of the Somme, which cost the British Army some 420,000 casualties, the French an estimated 200,000 casualties, and the Germans an estimated 500,000.
• In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and the tank, but it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored. 

Key Terms

Race to the Sea

The term described reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army through Picardy, Artois, and Flanders, rather than an attempt to advance northwards to the sea. The “race” ended on the North Sea coast of Belgium around October 19, when the last open area from Dixmude to the North Sea was occupied by Belgian troops who had been withdrawn from the Siege of Antwerp (September 28 – October 10). The outflanking attempts resulted in a number of encounter battles, but neither side was able to gain a decisive victory.

Battle of the Somme

A battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between July 1 and November 18, 1916, on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front. More than one million were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

Trench warfare

A type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy’s small arms fire and sheltered from artillery.

Trench Warfare in World War I

Trench warfare occurs when a revolution in firepower is not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender holds the advantage. Military tactics developed before World War I failed to keep pace with advances in technology and became obsolete. These advances had allowed the creation of strong defensive systems, which out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances, while artillery vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and the tank.

On the Western Front in 1914–18, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire, mines, and other obstacles. The area between opposing trench lines (known as “no man’s land”) was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties.

Just after the First Battle of the Marne (September 5-12, 1914), Entente and German forces repeatedly attempted maneuvering to the north in an effort to outflank each other, a strategy that became known as the “Race to the Sea.” When these outflanking efforts failed, the opposing forces soon found themselves facing an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from Lorraine to Belgium’s coast Britain. France sought to take the offensive while Germany defended the occupied territories. Consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy; Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be “temporary” before their forces broke through the German defenses.

Trench warfare prevailed on the Western Front from late 1914 until the Germans launched their Spring Offensive on March 21, 1918. After the buildup of forces in 1915, the Western Front became a stalemated struggle between equals to be decided by attrition. The small, improvised trenches of the first few months grew deeper and more complex, gradually becoming vast areas of interlocking defensive works. They resisted both artillery bombardment and mass infantry assault. Shell-proof dugouts became a high priority. Frontal assaults and their associated casualties became inevitable because the continuous trench lines had no open flanks. Casualties of the defenders matched those of the attackers, as vast reserves were expended in costly counter-attacks or exposed to the attacker’s massed artillery. There were periods in which rigid trench warfare broke down, such as during the Battle of the Somme, but the lines never moved very far. The war would be won by the side able to commit the last reserves to the Western Front.

Neither side delivered a decisive blow for the next two years. Throughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany because of the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides. Strategically, while the Germans only mounted one major offensive, the Allies made several attempts to break through the German lines.

In February 1916 the Germans attacked the French defensive positions at Verdun. Lasting until December 1916, the battle saw initial German gains before French counter-attacks returned them near their starting point. Casualties were greater for the French, but the Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000 to 975,000 casualties suffered between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice.

The Battle of the Somme was an Anglo-French offensive of July to November 1916. The opening of this offensive (July 1, 1916) saw the British Army endure the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead, on the first day alone. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army some 420,000 casualties. The French suffered another estimated 200,000 casualties and the Germans an estimated 500,000.

The last large-scale offensive of this period was a British attack (with French support) at Passchendaele (July–November 1917). This offensive opened with great promise for the Allies before bogging down in the October mud. Casualties, though disputed, were roughly equal at some 200,000–400,000 per side.

These years of trench warfare in the West saw no major exchanges of territory and, as a result, are often thought of as static and unchanging. However, throughout this period, British, French, and German tactics constantly evolved to meet new battlefield challenges.

Trench Warfare

Trenches of the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, on the Somme, July 1916. One sentry keeps watch while the others sleep. Photo by Ernest Brooks.

Trenches of the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, on the Somme, July 1916. One sentry keeps watch while the others sleep.

Development of Advanced Weaponry

Both sides tried to break the trench stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On April 22, 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans (violating the Hague Convention) used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front. After a two-day bombardment, the Germans released a cloud of 171 tons of chlorine gas onto the battlefield. Though primarily a powerful irritant, it can asphyxiate in high concentrations or prolonged exposure. The gas crept across no man’s land and drifted into the French trenches. The green-yellow cloud killed some defenders and those in the rear fled in panic, creating an undefended 3.7 mile gap in the Allied line. The Germans were unprepared for the level of their success and lacked sufficient reserves to exploit the opening. Canadian troops on the right drew back their left flank and repelled the German advance.

The success of this attack would not be repeated, as the Allies countered by introducing gas masks and other countermeasures. The British retaliated, developing their own chlorine gas and using it at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. Fickle winds and inexperience led to more British casualties from the gas than German. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides, and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. French, British, and German forces all escalated the use of gas attacks through the rest of the war, developing the more deadly phosgene gas in 1915, then the infamous mustard gas in 1917, which could linger for days and kill slowly and painfully. Countermeasures also improved and the stalemate continued.

Tanks were developed by Britain and France, and were first used in combat by the British during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on September 15, 1916, with only partial success. However, their effectiveness would grow as the war progressed; the Allies built tanks in large numbers, whilst the Germans employed only a few of their own design supplemented by captured Allied tanks.

29.4: The End of World War I

29.4.1: American Entry into WWI

The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, after two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States neutral.

Learning Objective

Explain why the United States entered WWI

Key Points

• After World War I began in 1914, the United States proclaimed a policy of strict neutrality, with President Wilson trying to broker peace.
• American public opinion was strongly divided, with most Americans until early 1917 supporting the United States staying out of the war.
• When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915, with 128 U.S. citizens aboard, Wilson demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships as they were in violation of international law and of human rights; Germany complied.
• Wilson came under pressure from war hawks led by former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as “piracy.” Public opinion, angry over the sinking of the Lusitania, began to sway in favor of entering the war.
• In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare against their 19155 agreement with the U.S.
• The German Foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, invited revolution-torn Mexico to join the war as Germany’s ally against the United States in the Zimmermann Telegram. This was intercepted by the British and given to the Americans, who saw it as a cause for war.
• The United States declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917, and immediately began sending troops to France.

Key Terms

casus belli

A Latin expression meaning “an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war” (literally, “a case of war”). It involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a casus foederis involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bound by a mutual defense pact. Either may be considered an act of war.

Zimmermann Telegram

A secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event of the United States entering World War I against Germany. The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents enraged American public opinion, especially after the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted the telegram was genuine on March 3, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April.

sinking of the Lusitania

On May 7, 1915, during the First World War, as Germany waged submarine warfare against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Lusitania was identified and torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 and sank in 18 minutes. The vessel went down 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,198 and leaving 761 survivors. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, contributed to the American entry into World War I, and became an iconic symbol in military recruiting campaigns.

American Neutrality and the Lusitania

At the outbreak of World War I, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. When the German U-boat U-20 sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, with 128 Americans among the dead, President Woodrow Wilson insisted that “America is too proud to fight” but demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied, and Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. However, he also repeatedly warned that the United States would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, which was in violation of international law. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced German acts as “piracy.” Wilson was narrowly reelected in 1916 as his supporters emphasized “he kept us out of war.”

American public opinion was divided, with most before early 1917 strongly of the opinion that the United States should stay out of the war. Opinion changed gradually, partly in response to German actions in Belgium and the sinking of the Lusitania, partly as German Americans lost influence, and partly in response to Wilson’s position that America had to play a role in making the world safe for democracy.

The general public showed little support for entering the war on the side of Germany. The great majority of German Americans and Scandinavian Americans, wanted the United States to remain neutral; however, at the outbreak of war, thousands of U.S. citizens tried to enlist in the German army. The Irish Catholic community, based in the large cities and often in control of the Democratic Party apparatus, was strongly hostile to helping Britain in any way, especially after the Easter uprising of 1916 in Ireland. Most Protestant church leaders in the United States, regardless of their theology, favored pacifistic solutions. Most of the leaders of the women’s movement, typified by Jane Addams, likewise sought brokerage of peace. The most prominent opponent of war was industrialist Henry Ford, who personally financed and led a peace ship to Europe to try to negotiate among the belligerents; no negotiations resulted.

Sinking of the Lusitania

A 1915 painting of the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania, an event which shifted American public opinion toward entering WWI and became a symbol for the fight against Germany.

A 1915 painting of the sinking of the Lusitania, a large passenger ocean liner leaning to the side, on fire and smoking, with passengers aboard.

The Zimmermann Telegram and Declaration of War

In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, realizing it would mean American entry. The German Foreign Minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, invited Mexico to join the war as Germany’s ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would finance Mexico’s war and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The United Kingdom intercepted the message and presented it to the U.S. embassy in the UK. From there it made its way to President Wilson, who released it to the public. Americans considered the Zimmermann Telegram casus belli. 

Popular sentiment in the United States at that time was anti-Mexican as well as anti-German, while in Mexico there was considerable anti-American sentiment. General John J. Pershing had long been chasing the revolutionary Pancho Villa and carried out several cross-border raids. News of the telegram further inflamed tensions between the United States and Mexico.

Wilson asked Congress for “a war to end all wars” that would “make the world safe for democracy” and eliminate militarism from the globe. He argued that the war was important and the U.S. thus must have a voice in the peace conference. After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on April 6, 1917.

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled “Associated Power.” It initially had a small army, but after the passage of the Selective Service Act drafted 2.8 million men, and by summer 1918 was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the U.S. Congress gave citizenship to Puerto Ricans drafted to participate in World War I as part of the Jones Act. If Germany believed it would be many more months before American soldiers would arrive and that their arrival could be stopped by U-boats, it had miscalculated.

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland, and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted American units to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not waste scarce shipping on supplies. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up American units to be used as filler material. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to be used in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division and earned a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Sechault. AEF doctrine called for the use of frontal assaults, which had long since been discarded by British Empire and French commanders due to the large loss of life that resulted.

America Enters WWI

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with the German Empire on February 3, 1917. Two months later, the U.S. declared war on Germany.

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with the German Empire on February 3, 1917.

29.4.2: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Russian government collapsed in March 1917. The subsequent October Revolution followed by a further military defeat brought the Russians to terms with the Central Powers via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which granted the Germans a significant victory and resulted in Russia exiting the war and breaking ties with the Allied Powers.

Learning Objective

State the consequences of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Key Points

• In March 1917, demonstrations in Russia culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak provisional government that shared power with the Petrograd Soviet socialists. 
• This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home, with the Russian army becoming increasingly ineffective.
• Discontent and the weaknesses of the provisional government led to a rise in the popularity of the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Lenin, which demanded an immediate end to the war. 
• The October Revolution, which put the Bolsheviks into power, was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. 
• At first, the Bolsheviks refused the German terms, but when German troops began marching across Ukraine unopposed, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. 
• The treaty ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, parts of Poland, and Ukraine, to the Central Powers.
• The treaty was effectively terminated in November 1918 when Germany surrendered to the Allies.

Key Terms

Eastern Front of World War I

A theater of operations that encompassed at its greatest extent the entire frontier between the Russian Empire and Romania on one side and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and the German Empire on the other. It stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, included most of Eastern Europe, and stretched deep into Central Europe as well. The term contrasts with “Western Front,” which was fought in Belgium and France.

October Revolution

A seizure of state power instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on October 25, 1917, and followed and capitalized on the February Revolution of the same year, which overthrew the Tsarist autocracy and resulted in a provisional government. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils (Russian: soviet) wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and its actions. This uprising overthrew the provisional government and gave the power to the local soviets. 

Russian Civil War

A multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia’s political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring monarchism, capitalism, and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and non-ideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

A peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia’s participation in World War I.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia’s participation in World War I. The treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk after two months of negotiations and was forced on the Bolshevik government by the threat of further advances by German and Austrian forces. According to the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia’s commitments to the Triple Entente alliance.

The treaty was effectively terminated in November 1918 when Germany surrendered to the Allies. However, in the meantime it provided some relief to the Bolsheviks, already fighting the Russian Civil War, by the renouncement of Russia’s claims on Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

Background

By 1917, Germany and Imperial Russia were in a stalemate on the Eastern Front of World War I. At the time, the Russian economy nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort. The large numbers of war casualties and persistent food shortages in the major urban centers brought about civil unrest, known as the February Revolution, that forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The Russian provisional government that replaced the Tsar (initially presided by prince Georgy Lvov, later by Alexander Kerensky), decided to continue the war on the Entente side. Foreign Minister Pavel Milyukov sent the Entente Powers a telegram, known as the Milyukov note, affirming that the provisional government would continue the war with the same aims as Imperial Russia.

The pro-war provisional government was opposed by the self-proclaimed Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, dominated by leftist parties. Its Order No. 1 called for an overriding mandate to soldier committees rather than army officers. The Soviet started to form its own paramilitary power, the Red Guards, in March 1917.

The position of the provisional government led the Germans to offer support to the Russian opposition, the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in particular, who were proponents of Russia’s withdrawal from the war. In April 1917, Germany allowed Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin to return to Russia from his exile in Switzerland and offered him financial help. Upon his arrival in Petrograd, Lenin proclaimed his April Theses, which included a call to turn all political power over to workers’ and soldiers’ soviets (councils) and an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. Throughout 1917, Bolsheviks spread defeatist and revolutionary propaganda calling for the overthrow of the provisional government and an end to the war. Following the disastrous failure of the Kerensky Offensive, discipline in the Russian army deteriorated completely. Soldiers would disobey orders, often under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, and allowed soldiers’ committees to take control of their units after deposing the officers. Russian and German soldiers occasionally left their positions and fraternized.

The defeat and ongoing hardships of war led to anti-government riots in Petrograd headed by the Bolsheviks, the “July Days” of 1917. Several months later on November 7 , Red Guards seized the Winter Palace and arrested the provisional government in what is known as the October Revolution.

The newly established Soviet government decided to end Russia’s participation in the war with Germany and its allies. On October 26, 1917, Vladimir Lenin signed the Decree on Peace, which was approved by the Second Congress of the Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies. The Decree called “upon all the belligerent nations and their governments to start immediate negotiations for peace” and proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from World War I. Leon Trotsky was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs in the new Bolshevik government. In preparation for peace talks with the representatives of the German government and other Central Powers, Leon Trotsky appointed his good friend Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks at the peace conference.

Terms of the Treaty and its Effects

On December 15, 1917, an armistice between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers was concluded and fighting stopped. On December 22, peace negotiations began at Brest-Litovsk. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918. The signatories were Bolshevik Russia signed by Grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov on the one side and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Empire on the other. The treaty marked Russia’s final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co-signatories, on unexpectedly humiliating terms.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

A photo of the signing of armistice between Russia and Germany on March 3, 1918. The treaty marked Russia’s final withdrawal from World War I and resulted in Russia losing major territorial holdings.

Signing of armistice between Russia and Germany, shows German delegates (on the left) and Soviet delegates (on the right) sitting and standing along a long table, signing the Treaty.

In the treaty, Bolshevik Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany; they were meant to become German vassal states under German princelings. Russia ceded its province of Kars Oblast in the South Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire and recognized the independence of Ukraine. Further, Russia agreed to pay six billion German gold marks in reparations. Historian Spencer Tucker says, “The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator.” Congress Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, as Germans refused to recognize the existence of any Polish representatives, which in turn led to Polish protests. When Germans later complained that the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was too harsh, the Allies (and historians favorable to the Allies) responded that it was more benign than Brest-Litovsk.

With the adoption of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Entente no longer existed. Despite this enormous apparent German success, the manpower required for German occupation of former Russian territory may have contributed to the failure of the Spring Offensive and secured relatively little food or other material for the Central Powers war effort. The Allied powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia, partly to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources, and to a lesser extent, to support the “Whites” (as opposed to the “Reds”) in the Russian Civil War. Allied troops landed in Arkhangelsk and in Vladivostok as part of the North Russia Intervention.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk lasted just over eight months. Germany renounced the treaty and broke diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia on November 5. The Ottoman Empire broke the treaty after just two months by invading the newly created First Republic of Armenia in May 1918. In the Armistice of November 11, 1918, that ended World War I, one of the first conditions was the complete abrogation of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. Following the German capitulation, the Bolshevik legislature annulled the treaty on November 13, 1918. In the year after the armistice, the German Army withdrew its occupying forces from the lands gained in Brest-Litovsk, leaving behind a power vacuum that various forces subsequently attempted to fill. In the Treaty of Rapallo, concluded in April 1922, Germany accepted the Treaty’s nullification, and the two powers agreed to abandon all war-related territorial and financial claims against each other.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk marked a significant contraction of the territory controlled by the Bolsheviks or that they could lay claim to as effective successors of the Russian Empire. While the independence of Finland and Poland was already accepted in principle, the loss of Ukraine and the Baltics created, from the Bolshevik perspective, dangerous bases of anti-Bolshevik military activity in the subsequent Russian Civil War (1918–1922). Indeed, many Russian nationalists and some revolutionaries were furious at the Bolsheviks’ acceptance of the treaty and joined forces to fight them. Non-Russians who inhabited the lands lost by Bolshevik Russia in the treaty saw the changes as an opportunity to set up independent states not under Bolshevik rule. Immediately after the signing of the treaty, Lenin moved the Soviet Russian government from Petrograd to Moscow.

The fate of the region and the location of the eventual western border of the Soviet Union was settled in violent and chaotic struggles over the course of the next three-and-a-half years.

29.4.3: The British Naval Blockade

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany. This strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies and helping the Allies to eventually win the war.

Learning Objective

Evaluate the effectiveness of the British Naval Blockade

Key Points

• Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterized by the efforts of the Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position, to blockade the Central Powers by sea. The Central Powers used submarines and radars to try t  break that blockade or establish their own blockade of the United Kingdom and France.
• Shortly after the outbreak of the war, the British navy, the largest and most powerful in the world at that time, began a naval blockade of Germany, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies.
• Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships.
• The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 claimed that 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade through December 1918.
• The blockade also had a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy and the U.S. government protested the blockade vigorously.
• It is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war, although historians have argued about its importance.

Key Terms

German Revolution of 1918–19

Civil conflict in the German Empire at the end of the First World War resulted in the replacement of Germany’s Imperial government with a republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the establishment in August 1919 of a republic that later became known as the Weimar Republic.

Blockade of Germany

A prolonged naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, during and after World War I to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey.

The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. It was a prolonged naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, during and after World War I to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. It is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war. The German Board of Public Health claimed that 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade through December 1918. An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000.

Both the German Empire and the United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed their population and supply their war industry. Imports of foodstuffs and war material of all European belligerents came primarily from the Americas and had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, so Britain and Germany both aimed to blockade each other. The British had the Royal Navy, which was superior in numbers and could operate throughout the British Empire, while the German Kaiserliche Marine surface fleet was mainly restricted to the German Bight and used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare to operate elsewhere.

The British—with their overwhelming sea power—established a naval blockade of Germany immediately on the outbreak of war in August 1914, issuing a comprehensive list of contraband that all but prohibited American trade with the Central powers. In early November 1914 they declared the North Sea a war zone, with any ships entering at their own risk. The blockade was unusually restrictive in that even foodstuffs were considered “contraband of war.” There were complaints about breaches of international law; however, most neutral merchant vessels agreed to dock at British ports to be inspected and then escorted—less any “illegal” cargo destined for Germany—through the British minefields to their destinations.

Did the Blockade Win the War?

The first official accounts of the blockade, written by Professor A. C. Bell and Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds, differed in their accounts of its effects upon German food supplies. Bell—who employed German data—argued that the blockade led to revolutionary uprisings in Germany and caused the collapse of the Kaiser′s administration. Edmonds, supported by Colonel Irwin L. Hunt (who was in charge of civil affairs in the American occupied zone of the Rhineland), held that food shortages were a post-armistice phenomenon caused solely by the disruptions of the German Revolution of 1918–19.

More recent studies also disagree on the severity of the blockade′s impact on the affected populations at the time of the revolution and the armistice. Some hold that the blockade starved Germany and the Central Powers into defeat in 1918, but others maintain that while the German population did indeed go hungry as a result of the blockade, Germany′s rationing system kept all but a few from actually starving to death. German success against the Russians on the Eastern Front culminating in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave Germany access to the resources of Poland and other eastern territories, which did much to counter the effects of the blockade. The armistice on November 11 was forced by events on the Western Front rather than any actions of the civilian population. Germany’s largest ally, Austria-Hungary, had already signed an armistice on November 3, exposing Germany to an invasion from the south.

Nevertheless, it is accepted that the blockade made a large contribution to the outcome of the war; by 1915, Germany′s imports had already fallen by 55% from their prewar levels and the exports were 53% of what they were in 1914. Apart from leading to shortages in vital raw materials such as coal and metals, the blockade also deprived Germany of supplies of fertilizer that were vital to agriculture. This latter led to staples such as grain, potatoes, meat, and dairy products becoming so scarce by the end of 1916 that many people were obliged to instead consume ersatz products including Kriegsbrot (“war bread”) and powdered milk. The food shortages caused looting and riots not only in Germany, but also in Vienna and Budapest. Austria-Hungary even hijacked ships on the Danube that were meant to deliver food to Germany.

The German government made strong attempts to counter the effects of the blockade; the Hindenburg Programme of German economic mobilization launched in August 1916 was designed to raise productivity by the compulsory employment of all men between the ages of 17 and 60. A complicated rationing system introduced in January 1915 aimed to ensure that a minimum nutritional need was met, with “war kitchens” providing cheap mass meals to impoverished civilians in larger cities. All these schemes enjoyed only limited success, and the average daily diet of 1,000 calories was insufficient to maintain a good standard of health, resulting by 1917 in widespread disorders caused by malnutrition such as scurvy, tuberculosis, and dysentery.

The blockade also had a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy. Under pressure especially from commercial interests wishing to profit from wartime trade with both sides, the U.S. government protested vigorously. Britain did not wish to antagonize the U.S., but cutting off trade to the enemy seemed a more pressing goal. Eventually, Germany′s submarine campaign and the subsequent sinking of the RMS Lusitania and other civilian vessels with Americans on board did far more to antagonize U.S. opinion than the blockade had.

British Grand Fleet

The Grand Fleet sailing in parallel columns during the First World War. The British Navy was responsible for the successful Blockade of Germany, which cut off vital supplies from Germany and contributed to the defeat of the Central Powers.

The Grand Fleet sailing in parallel columns during the First World War

29.4.4: The Hundred Days Offensive

The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of World War I, during which the Allies launched a series of offensive attacks against the Central Powers that pushed the Germans out of France and led to their defeat.

Learning Objective

Describe the events of the Hundred Days Offensive and how they led to the end of the war

Key Points

• After a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives, known collectively as the Hundred Days Offensives.
• The Hundred Days Offensives began with the Battle of Amiens in August 1918, with an attack by more than 10 Allied divisions—Australian, Canadian, British and French forces—with more than 500 tanks.
• Total German losses were estimated at 30,000 men, while the Allies suffered about 6,500 killed, wounded and missing; the resulting collapse in German morale led German General Erich Ludendorff to dub it “the Black Day of the German Army.”
• The allies continued offensives on several points on the Western Front, eventually forcing the Germans behind the Hindenburg Line, which had been a stable defensive line for the Germans.
• With the military faltering and widespread loss of confidence in the Kaiser, Germany moved towards surrender.
• On November 4, 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to an armistice, and Germany, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries, agreed to an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies.

Key Terms

Weimar Republic

An unofficial historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. In its 14 years, it faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism (with paramilitaries – both left- and right-wing); and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. Hitler’s seizure of power brought the republic to an end; as democracy collapsed, a single-party state founded the Nazi era.

Hundred Days Offensive

The final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from August 8 to November 11, 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens.

Hindenburg Line

A German defensive position of World War I, built during the winter of 1916-1917 on the Western Front from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. Construction of this position in France was begun by the Germans in September 1916, to make retirement from the Somme front possible and counter an anticipated increase in the power of Anglo-French attacks in 1917.

Spring Offensive

A series of German attacks along the Western Front during the First World War, beginning on March 21, 1918, that marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914. The Germans realized that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the overwhelming human and matériel resources of the United States could be fully deployed. They also had the temporary advantage in numbers afforded by the nearly 50 divisions freed by the Russian surrender.

The Hundred Days Offensive was the final period of the First World War, during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from August 8 to November 11, 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens. The offensive essentially pushed the Germans out of France, forcing them to retreat beyond the Hindenburg Line, and was followed by an armistice. The term “Hundred Days Offensive” does not refer to a specific battle or unified strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories starting with the Battle of Amiens.

Background

The Spring Offensive of the German Army on the Western Front began in March 1918 with Operation Michael and had petered out by July. The Germans advanced to the river Marne but failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. When Operation Marne-Rheims ended in July, the Allied supreme commander Ferdinand Foch, ordered a counter-offensive which became known as the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans, recognizing their untenable position, withdrew from the Marne towards the north. For this victory, Foch was granted the title Marshal of France.

Foch thought the time had arrived for the Allies to return to the offensive. The American Expeditionary Force (AEF, General John J. Pershing), was present in France in large numbers and invigorated the Allied armies. Pershing was keen to use his army in an independent role. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had also been reinforced by large numbers of troops returned from the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Italian Front, as well as replacements held back in Britain by the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.

A number of proposals were considered and finally, Foch agreed on a proposal by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the BEF, to strike on the River Somme, east of Amiens and south-west of the site of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, with the intention of forcing the Germans away from the vital Amiens-Paris railway. The Somme was chosen as a suitable site for several reasons. As in 1916, it marked the boundary between the BEF and the French armies, in this case defined by the Amiens-Roye road, allowing the two armies to cooperate. Also, the Picardy countryside provided a good surface for tanks, which was not the case in Flanders. Finally, the German defenses, manned by the German 2nd Army (General Georg von der Marwitz), were relatively weak, having been subjected to continual raiding by the Australians in a process termed peaceful penetration.

Final Battles of WWI

The Hundred Days Offensive began on August 8, 1918, with the Battle of Amiens. The battle involved over 400 tanks and 120,000 British, Dominion, and French troops, and by the end of its first day a gap 15 miles long had been created in the German lines. The defenders displayed a marked collapse in morale, causing German General Erich Ludendorff to refer to this day as the “Black Day of the German army.” After an advance as far as 14 miles, German resistance stiffened, and the battle was concluded on August 12.

Rather than continuing the Amiens battle past the point of initial success, as had been done so many times in the past, the Allies shifted their attention elsewhere. Allied leaders had now realized that to continue an attack after resistance had hardened was a waste of lives, and it was better to turn a line than to try to roll over it. They began to undertake attacks in quick order to take advantage of successful advances on the flanks, then broke them off when the initial impetus was lost.

British and Dominion forces launched the next phase of the campaign with the Battle of Albert on August 21. The assault was widened by French and further British forces in the following days. During the last week of August, the Allied pressure along a 68-mile front against the enemy was heavy and unrelenting. From German accounts, “Each day was spent in bloody fighting against an ever and again on-storming enemy, and nights passed without sleep in retirements to new lines.”

Faced with these advances, on September 2 the German Supreme Army Command issued orders to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line in the south.

September saw the Allies advance to the Hindenburg Line in the north and center. The Germans continued to fight strong rear-guard actions and launched numerous counterattacks on lost positions, but only a few succeeded, and those only temporarily. Contested towns, villages, heights, and trenches in the screening positions and outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. The Germans retreated to positions along or behind the Hindenburg Line.

In nearly four weeks of fighting beginning August 8, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken. The German High Command realized that the war was lost and made attempts to reach a satisfactory end. The day after that battle, Ludendorff said: “We cannot win the war any more, but we must not lose it either.”

The Hundred Days Offensive

September 1, 1918, Péronne (Somme). A machine gun position established by the Australian 54th Battalion during its attack on German forces in the town.

September 1, 1918, Péronne (Somme). A machine gun position established by the Australian 54th Battalion during its attack on German forces in the town. The street is bordered by houses in ruin.

The final assault on the Hindenburg Line began with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, launched by French and American troops on September 27. The following week, cooperating French and American units broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge, forcing the Germans off the commanding heights and closing toward the Belgian frontier. On October 8, the line was pierced again by British and Dominion troops at the Battle of Cambrai.

With the military faltering and widespread loss of confidence in the Kaiser, Germany moved towards surrender. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new government as Chancellor of Germany to negotiate with the Allies. Negotiations with President Wilson began immediately in the hope that he would offer better terms than the British and French. Wilson demanded a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary control over the German military. There was no resistance when the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann declared Germany a republic on November 9. The Kaiser, kings, and other hereditary rulers were removed from power and Wilhelm fled to exile in the Netherlands. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born as the Weimar Republic.

Soon after, the Germans signed the Armistice of Compiègne, which ended the fighting on the Western Front. It went into effect at 11 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918 (“the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”), and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender. Although the armistice ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles.

Armistice of Compiègne

Men of US 64th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, celebrate the news of the Armistice, 11 November 1918, which ended the hostilities of WWI.

Men of US 64th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, celebrate the news of the Armistice, 11 November 1918. A large group of men in military outfits are smiling and raising up their helmets.

29.5: The Treaty of Versailles

29.5.1: Diplomatic Goals at the Paris Peace Conference

The “Big Four” (United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy) made all the major decisions of the Paris Peace Conference, although they disagreed on several points.

Learning Objective

Identify the key goals of the parties present at the Paris Peace Conference

Key Points

• World War I was settled by the victors at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. 
• Two dozen nations sent delegations and there were many nongovernmental groups, but the defeated powers were not invited.
• The “Big Four,” who made all the major decisions, were President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, George Clemenceau of France, and of least importance, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando.
• Each major power had its own agenda coming to the Conference and not every aim was represented in the final treaties.
• The Americans’ vision was set out in Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which emphasized free trade, self-determination, and the founding of a League of Nations to support territorial and political independence of member nations.
• British aims at the conference were focused on securing France, settling territorial disputes, and maintaining their colonial holdings.
• Having witnessed two German attacks on French soil in the last 40 years, France’s main concern was to ensure Germany would not be able to attack them again, so they pushed to weaken Germany militarily, strategically, and economically.
• Italy was motivated by gaining the territories promised by the Allies in the secret Treaty of London.

Key Terms

George Clemenceau

A French politician, physician, and journalist who served as Prime Minister of France during the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in the politics of the French Third Republic. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed “Père la Victoire” (Father Victory) or “Le Tigre” (The Tiger), he took a harsh position against defeated Germany, though not quite as much as the President Raymond Poincaré, and won agreement on Germany’s payment of large sums for reparations.

David Lloyd George

British Liberal politician and statesman. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–1915), he was a key figure in the introduction of many reforms that laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His most important role came as the highly energetic Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government (1916–22), during and immediately after the First World War. He was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the defeat of the Central Powers.

Woodrow Wilson

An American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Leading a Congress in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. The Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, Clayton Antitrust Act, and Federal Farm Loan Act were some of these new policies. His second term was dominated by American entry into World War I.

Vittorio Orlando

An Italian statesman known for representing Italy in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference with his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino. He was also known as “Premier of Victory” for defeating the Central Powers along with the Entente in World War I. He was a member and president of the Constitutional Assembly that changed the Italian form of government into a republic.

Paris Peace Conference

The Paris Peace Conference, also known as Versailles Peace Conference, was the meeting of the Allied victors after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris during 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities, including some non-governmental groups, but the defeated powers were not invited.

The “Big Four” were President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, George Clemenceau of France, and of least importance, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando. They met informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which in turn were ratified by the others.

The conference opened on January 18, 1919. This date was symbolic, the anniversary of the proclamation of William I as German Emperor in 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, shortly before the end of the Siege of Paris. This date was also imbued with significance in Germany as the anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. Delegates from 27 nations were assigned to 52 commissions that held 1,646 sessions to prepare reports with the help of many experts on topics ranging from prisoners of war to undersea cables to international aviation to responsibility for the war. Key recommendations were folded into the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, which had 15 chapters and 440 clauses, as well as treaties for the other defeated nations.

The Big Four

“The Big Four” made all the major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference (from left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.)

From left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the U.S. standing on a sidewalk outside a building during the Paris Peace Conference.

American Approach

Wilson’s diplomacy and his Fourteen Points essentially established the conditions for the armistices that brought an end to World War I. Wilson felt it was his duty and obligation to the people of the world to be a prominent figure at the peace negotiations. High hopes and expectations were placed on him to deliver what he had promised for the post-war era. In doing so, Wilson ultimately began to lead the foreign policy of the United States toward interventionism, a move strongly resisted in some domestic circles. Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy, and self-determination). One of his major aims was to found a League of Nations “for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”

Once Wilson arrived, however, he found “rivalries, and conflicting claims previously submerged.” He mostly tried to sway the direction that the French (Georges Clemenceau) and British (Lloyd George) delegations were taking towards Germany and its allies in Europe, as well as the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East. Wilson’s attempts to gain acceptance of his Fourteen Points ultimately failed after France and Britain refused to adopt some specific points and its core principles.

In Europe, several of his Fourteen Points conflicted with the other powers. The United States did not encourage or believe that the responsibility for the war that Article 231 placed on Germany was fair or warranted. It would not be until 1921 that the United States finally signed separate peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary.

In the Middle East, negotiations were complicated by competing aims, claims, and the new mandate system. The United States hoped to establish a more liberal and diplomatic world, as stated in the Fourteen Points, where democracy, sovereignty, liberty, and self-determination would be respected. France and Britain, on the other hand, already controlled empires, wielded power over their subjects around the world, and still aspired to be dominant colonial powers.

British Approach

Maintenance of the British Empire’s unity, holdings, and interests was an overarching concern for the British delegates to the conference, with more specific goals of:

• Ensuring the security of France
• Removing the threat of the German High Seas Fleet
• Settling territorial contentions
• Supporting the League of Nations with that order of priority

Convinced that Canada had become a nation on the battlefields of Europe, its Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, demanded that it have a separate seat at the conference. This was initially opposed not only by Britain but also by the United States, which saw a dominion delegation as an extra British vote. Borden responded by pointing out that since Canada had lost nearly 60,000 men, a far larger proportion of its men compared to the 50,000 American losses, at least had the right to the representation of a “minor” power. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, eventually relented, and convinced the reluctant Americans to accept the presence of delegations from Canada, India, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa. They also received their own seats in the League of Nations.

David Lloyd George commented that he did “not do badly” at the peace conference, “considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon.” This was a reference to the very idealistic views of Wilson on the one hand and the stark realism of Clemenceau, who was determined to see Germany punished.

French Approach

The French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, controlled his delegation. His chief goal was to weaken Germany militarily, strategically, and economically. Having personally witnessed two German attacks on French soil in the last 40 years, he was adamant that Germany should not be permitted to attack France again. In particular, Clemenceau sought an American and British guarantee of French security in the event of another German attack.

Clemenceau also expressed skepticism and frustration with Wilson’s Fourteen Points: “Mr. Wilson bores me with his fourteen points,” complained Clemenceau. “Why, God Almighty has only ten!” Wilson won a few points by signing a mutual defense treaty with France, but back in Washington he did not present it to the Senate for ratification and it never took effect.

Another alternative French policy was to seek a resumption of harmonious relations with Germany. In May 1919 the diplomat René Massigli was sent on several secret missions to Berlin. During his visits, Massigli offered on behalf of his government to revise the territorial and economic clauses of the upcoming peace treaty.

The Germans rejected the French offers because they considered the French overtures to be a trap to trick them into accepting the Versailles treaty “as is,” and because the German foreign minister, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, thought that the United States was more likely to reduce the severity of the peace terms than France. It proved to be Lloyd George who pushed for more favorable terms for Germany.

Italian Approach

In 1914 Italy remained neutral despite its alliances with Germany and Austria. In 1915 it joined the Allies, motivated by gaining the territories promised by the Allies in the secret Treaty of London: the Trentino, the Tyrol as far as Brenner, Trieste and Istria, most of the Dalmatian coast except Fiume, Valona and a protectorate over Albania, Antalya in Turkey, and possibly colonies in Africa or Asia.

In the meetings of the “Big Four,, in which Orlando’s powers of diplomacy were inhibited by his lack of English, the others were only willing to offer Trentino to the Brenner, the Dalmatian port of Zara and some of the Dalmatian islands. All other territories were promised to other nations and the great powers were worried about Italy’s imperial ambitions. Even though Italy did get most of its demands, Orlando was refused Fiume, most of Dalmatia, and any colonial gain, so he left the conference in a rage.

There was a general disappointment in Italy, which the nationalist and fascist parties used to build the idea that Italy was betrayed by the Allies and refused what was due. This led to the general rise of Italian fascism.

Japanese Approach

The Empire of Japan sent a large delegation headed by former Prime Minister, Marquess Saionji Kinmochi. It was originally one of the “big five” but relinquished that role because of its slight interest in European affairs. Instead it focused on two demands: the inclusion of their racial equality proposal in the League’s Covenant and Japanese territorial claims with respect to former German colonies, namely Shantung (including Kiaochow) and the Pacific islands north of the Equator (the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Mariana Islands, and the Carolines). The Japanese delegation became unhappy after receiving only half of the rights of Germany, and walked out of the conference.

29.5.2: Wilson’s Fourteen Points

The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles used for peace negotiations following the end World War I, outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson.

Learning Objective

Summarize the key themes of the Fourteen Points

Key Points

• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson initiated a secret series of studies named The Inquiry, primarily focused on Europe and carried out by a group in New York that included geographers, historians, and political scientists. This group researched topics likely to arise in the anticipated peace conference.
• The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, in which he articulated America’s long-term war objectives.
• The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was authored mainly by Walter Lippmann and projected Wilson’s progressive domestic policies into the international arena. 
• It was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations and was generally supported by the European nations.
• The first six points dealt with diplomacy, freedom of the seas, and settlement of colonial claims; pragmatic territorial issues were addressed as well, and the final point regarded the establishment of an association of nations to guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of all nations—a League of Nations.
• The actual agreements reached at the Paris Peace Conference were quite different than Wilson’s plan, most notably in the harsh economic reparations required from Germany. This provision angered Germans and may have contributed to the rise of Nazism in the subsequent decades.

Key Terms

idealism

In foreign policy, the belief that a state should make its internal political philosophy the goal of its foreign policy. For example, an idealist might believe that ending poverty at home should be coupled with tackling poverty abroad. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was an early advocate of this philosophy.

Stab-in-the-back myth

The notion, widely believed in right-wing circles in Germany after 1918, that the German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield but was instead betrayed by the civilians on the home front, especially the republicans who overthrew the monarchy in the German Revolution of 1918–19. Advocates denounced the German government leaders who signed the Armistice on November 11, 1918, as the “November Criminals.”

the Inquiry

A study group established in September 1917 by Woodrow Wilson to prepare materials for the peace negotiations following World War I. The group, composed of around 150 academics, was directed by presidential adviser Edward House and supervised directly by philosopher Sidney Mezes.

Fourteen Points

A statement of principles used for peace negotiations to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson.

The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles used for peace negotiations to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. Europeans generally welcomed Wilson’s points, but his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.

The United States joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany’s resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain. However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States’ involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great powers; if America was going to fight, he wanted to unlink the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims was highlighted when after the fall of the Russian government, the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson’s speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin’s Decree on Peace of November 1917 immediately after the October Revolution, which proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, called for a just and democratic peace that was not compromised by territorial annexations, and led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918.

The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy (free trade, open agreements, democracy, and self-determination). The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of war aims by any of the nations fighting in World War I. Some belligerents gave general indications of their aims, but most kept their post-war goals private.

Background and Research

The immediate cause of the United States’ entry into World War I in April 1917 was the German announcement of renewed unrestricted submarine warfare and the subsequent sinking of ships with Americans on board. But President Wilson’s war aims went beyond the defense of maritime interests. In his War Message to Congress, Wilson declared that the United States’ objective was “to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world.” In several speeches earlier in the year, Wilson sketched out his vision of an end to the war that would bring a “just and secure peace,” not merely “a new balance of power.”

President Wilson subsequently initiated a secret series of studies named the Inquiry, primarily focused on Europe and carried out by a group in New York that included geographers, historians, and political scientists; the group was directed by Colonel Edward House. Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economic, social, and political facts likely to come up in discussions during the peace conference. The group produced and collected nearly 2,000 separate reports and documents plus at least 1,200 maps. The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, in which he articulated America’s long-term war objectives. The speech was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations and projected Wilson’s progressive domestic policies into the international arena.

The Speech to Congress

The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was developed from a set of diplomatic points by Wilson and territorial points drafted by the Inquiry’s general secretary, Walter Lippmann, and his colleagues, Isaiah Bowman, Sidney Mezes, and David Hunter Miller. Lippmann’s draft territorial points were a direct response to the secret treaties of the European Allies, which Lippman was shown by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Lippman’s task according to House was “to take the secret treaties, analyze the parts which were tolerable, and separate them from those which we regarded as intolerable, and then develop a position which conceded as much to the Allies as it could, but took away the poison…It was all keyed upon the secret treaties.”

In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas. Wilson also made proposals that would ensure world peace in the future. For example, he proposed the removal of economic barriers between nations, the promise of self-determination for national minorities, and a world organization that would guarantee the “political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike”— a League of Nations.

Though Wilson’s idealism pervades the Fourteen Points, he also had more practical objectives in mind. He hoped to keep Russia in the war by convincing the Bolsheviks that they would receive a better peace from the Allies, to bolster Allied morale, and to undermine German war support. The address was well received in the United States and Allied nations and even by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin as a landmark of enlightenment in international relations. Wilson subsequently used the Fourteen Points as the basis for negotiating the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

Wilson with his 14 points choosing between competing claims. Babies represent claims of the English, French, Italians, Polish, Russians, and enemy. American political cartoon, 1919.

American political cartoon, 1919. It depicts Wilson holding his 14 points on a piece of paper and label “judge,” looking over the “European Baby Show,” which is a row of babies labeled with the various nations of WWI.

Fourteen Points vs. the Versailles Treaty

President Wilson became physically ill at the beginning of the Paris Peace Conference, allowing French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau to advance demands substantially different from Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Clemenceau viewed Germany as having unfairly attained an economic victory over France, due to the heavy damage their forces dealt to France’s industries even duringretreat, and expressed dissatisfaction with France’s allies at the peace conference.

Notably, Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which would become known as the War Guilt Clause, was seen by the Germans as assigning full responsibility for the war and its damages on Germany; however, the same clause was included in all peace treaties and historian Sally Marks has noted that only German diplomats saw it as assigning responsibility for the war.

The text of the Fourteen Points had been widely distributed in Germany as propaganda prior to the end of the war and was thus well-known by the Germans. The differences between this document and the final Treaty of Versailles fueled great anger. German outrage over reparations and the War Guilt Clause is viewed as a likely contributing factor to the rise of national socialism. At the end of World War I, foreign armies had only entered Germany’s prewar borders twice: the advance of Russian troops into the Eastern border of Prussia, and following the Battle of Mulhouse, the settlement of the French army in the Thann valley. This lack of important Allied incursions contributed to the popularization of the Stab-in-the-back myth in Germany after the war.

29.5.3: The Final Treaty

After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers, officially ending the war. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles dealt with Germany and, building on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, created the League of Nations in June 1919.

Learning Objective

Describe the final treaty signed by the belligerants

Key Points

• The major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference were the creation of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as “mandates,” chiefly to Britain and France; and the drawing of new national boundaries to better reflect the forces of nationalism.
• The Central Powers had to acknowledge responsibility for “all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by” their aggression. 
• In the Treaty of Versailles, this statement was Article 231, which became known as War Guilt clause because of the resentment and humiliation it caused many Germans.
• The Treaty of Versailles also forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that formed the Entente powers.
• The redrawing of the world map at these conferences created many critical conflict-prone international contradictions; these became one of the causes of World War II.

Key Terms

Carthaginian peace

The imposition of a brutal “peace” achieved by completely crushing the enemy. The term derives from the peace imposed on Carthage by Rome. After the Second Punic War, Carthage lost all its colonies, was forced to demilitarize and pay a constant tribute to Rome, and could enter war only with Rome’s permission. At the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans systematically burned Carthage to the ground and enslaved its population.

White Russia

A loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces that fought the Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and to a lesser extent, continued operating as militarized associations both outside and within Russian borders until roughly the Second World War.

Treaty of Versailles

The most important of the peace treaties that ended World War I. It was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Final Treaties of the Paris Peace Conference

Five major peace treaties were prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (with the affected countries in parentheses):

• The Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919, (Germany)
• The Treaty of Saint-Germain, September 10, 1919, (Austria)
• The Treaty of Neuilly, November 27, 1919, (Bulgaria)
• The Treaty of Trianon, June 4, 1920, (Hungary)
• The Treaty of Sèvres, August 10, 1920; subsequently revised by the Treaty of Lausanne, July 24, 1923, (Ottoman Empire/Republic of Turkey).

The major decisions were the establishment of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as “mandates,” chiefly to members of the British Empire and to France; reparations imposed on Germany, and the drawing of new national boundaries (sometimes with plebiscites) to better reflect the forces of nationalism. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on “the aggression of Germany and her allies.” This provision proved humiliating for Germans and set the stage for very high reparations, though Germany paid only a small portion before reparations ended in 1931.

As the conference’s decisions were enacted unilaterally and largely on the whims of the Big Four, for the duration of the Conference Paris was effectively the center of a world government that deliberated over and implemented sweeping changes to the political geography of Europe. Most famously, the Treaty of Versailles itself weakened Germany’s military and placed full blame for the war and costly reparations on Germany’s shoulders. The humiliation and resentment this caused is sometimes consider responsible for Nazi electoral successes and indirectly, World War II. 

The League of Nations proved controversial in the United States as critics said it subverted the powers of Congress to declare war. The U.S. Senate did not ratify any of the peace treaties and the U.S. never joined the League – instead, the Harding administration of 1921-1923 concluded new treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Germany was not invited to attend the conference at Versailles. Representatives of White Russia (but not Communist Russia) were present. Numerous other nations sent delegations to appeal for various unsuccessful additions to the treaties; parties lobbied for causes ranging from independence for the countries of the South Caucasus to Japan’s demand for racial equality among the other Great Powers.

Austria-Hungary was partitioned into several successor states, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, largely but not entirely along ethnic lines. Transylvania was shifted from Hungary to Greater Romania. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, 3.3 million Hungarians came under foreign rule. Although the Hungarians made up 54% of the population of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary, only 32% of its territory was left to Hungary. Between 1920 and 1924, 354,000 Hungarians fled former Hungarian territories attached to Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

The Russian Empire, which had withdrawn from the war in 1917 after the October Revolution, lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it. Romania took control of Bessarabia in April 1918.

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated, with much of its Levant territory awarded to various Allied powers as protectorates, including Palestine. The Turkish core in Anatolia was reorganized as the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920. This treaty was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish National Movement, leading to the victorious Turkish War of Independence and the much less stringent 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. It was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties. Although the armistice signed on November 11, 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919.

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required “Germany accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage” during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion marks (then $31.4 billion, roughly equivalent to USD $442 billion in 2017). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes, predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a “Carthaginian peace”—and said the reparations figure was excessive and counter-productive, views that have since been the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists from several countries. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently.

The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left no one content: Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European Powers, and the renegotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the indefinite postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932.

Treaty of Versailles

The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors by Sir William Orpen. German Johannes Bell signs the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors, with various Allied delegations sitting and standing in front of him.

A painting of German Johannes Bell signing the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors, with various Allied delegations sitting and standing in front of him.

Historical Assessment

The remaking of the world map at these conferences gave birth to a number of critical conflict-prone international contradictions, which would become one of the causes of World War II. The British historian Eric Hobsbawm claimed that

no equally systematic attempt has been made before or since, in Europe or anywhere else, to redraw the political map on national lines. […] The logical implication of trying to create a continent neatly divided into coherent territorial states each inhabited by separate ethnically and linguistically homogeneous population, was the mass expulsion or extermination of minorities. Such was and is the reductio ad absurdum of nationalism in its territorial version, although this was not fully demonstrated until the 1940s.

It has long been argued that Wilson’s Fourteen Points, in particular the principle of national self-determination, were primarily anti-Left measures designed to tame the revolutionary fever sweeping across Europe in the wake of the October Revolution and the end of the war by playing the nationalist card.

29.5.4: The League of Nations

The League of Nations was formed to prevent a repetition of the First World War, but within two decades this effort failed. Economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation (particularly in Germany) eventually contributed to World War II.

Learning Objective

Explain the ideals that underpinned the forming of the League of Nations

Key Points

• The League of Nations was formed at the Paris Peace Conference to prevent another global conflict like World War I and maintain world peace. It was the first organization of its kind.
• Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.
• Unlike former efforts at world peace such as the Concert of Europe, the League was an independent organization without an army of its own, and thus depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions.
• The members were often hesitant to do so, leaving the League powerless to intervene in disputes and conflicts.
• The U.S. Congress, mainly led by Henry Cabot Lodge, was resistant to joining the League, as doing so would legally bind the U.S. to intervene in European conflicts. In the end, the U.S. did not join the League, despite being its main architects.
• The League failed to intervene in many conflicts leading up to World War II, including the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Key Terms

Henry Cabot Lodge

An American Republican Senator and historian from Massachusetts best known for his positions on foreign policy, especially his battle with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles. He demanded Congressional control of declarations of war; Wilson refused and blocked his move to ratify the treaty with reservations. As a result, the United States never joined the League of Nations.

League of Nations

An intergovernmental organization founded on January 10, 1920, as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals as stated in its Covenant included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded on January 10, 1920, as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Other issues in this and related treaties included labor conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe. At its greatest extent from September 28, 1934, to February 23, 1935, it had 58 members.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, and provide an army when needed. However, the Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, when the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that “the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out.”

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, and others. The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations (UN) replaced it after the end of the Second World War in April 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.

Establishment of the League of Nations

American President Woodrow Wilson instructed Edward M. House to draft a U.S. plan that reflected Wilson’s own idealistic views (first articulated in the Fourteen Points of January 1918), as well as the work of the Phillimore Committee. The outcome of House’s work and Wilson’s own first draft, proposed the termination of “unethical” state behavior, including forms of espionage and dishonesty. Methods of compulsion against recalcitrant states would include severe measures, such as “blockading and closing the frontiers of that power to commerce or intercourse with any part of the world and to use any force that may be necessary…”

The two principal rchitects of the covenant of the League of Nations were Lord Robert Cecil (a lawyer and diplomat) and Jan Smuts (a Commonwealth statesman). Smuts’ proposals included the creation of a Council of the great powers as permanent members and a non-permanent selection of the minor states. He also proposed the creation of a mandate system for captured colonies of the Central Powers during the war. Cecil focused on the administrative side and proposed annual Council meetings and quadrennial meetings for the Assembly of all members. He also argued for a large and permanent secretariat to carry out the League’s administrative duties.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson, Cecil, and Smuts put forward their draft proposals. After lengthy negotiations between the delegates, the Hurst-Miller draft was finally produced as a basis for the Covenant. After more negotiation and compromise, the delegates finally approved of the proposal to create the League of Nations on January 25, 1919. The final Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles. On June 28, 44 states signed the Covenant, including 31 states that took part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict.

The League would consist of a General Assembly (representing all member states), an Executive Council (with membership limited to major powers), and a permanent secretariat. Member states were expected to “respect and preserve as against external aggression” the territorial integrity of other members and to disarm “to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” All states were required to submit complaints for arbitration or judicial inquiry before going to war. The Executive Council would create a Permanent Court of International Justice to make judgments on the disputes.

Despite Wilson’s efforts to establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1919, the United States did not join. Opposition in the Senate, particularly from two Republican politicians, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Borah, and especially in regard to Article X of the Covenant, ensured that the United States would not ratify the agreement. Their objections were based on the fact that by ratifying such a document, the United States would be bound by international contract to defend a League of Nations member if it was attacked. They believed that it was best not to become involved in international conflicts.

The League held its first council meeting in Paris on January 16, 1920, six days after the Versailles Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations came into force. On November 1, the headquarters of the League was moved from London to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on November 15.

Successes and Failures of the League

The aftermath of the First World War left many issues to be settled, including the exact position of national boundaries and which country particular regions would join. Most of these questions were handled by the victorious Allied powers in bodies such as the Allied Supreme Council. The Allies tended to refer only particularly difficult matters to the League. This meant that during the early interwar period, the League played little part in resolving the turmoil resulting from the war. The questions the League considered in its early years included those designated by the Paris Peace treaties.

As the League developed, its role expanded, and by the middle of the 1920s it had become the center of international activity. This change can be seen in the relationship between the League and non-members. The United States and Russia, for example, increasingly worked with the League. During the second half of the 1920s, France, Britain, and Germany were all using the League of Nations as the focus of their diplomatic activity, and each of their foreign secretaries attended League meetings at Geneva during this period. They also used the League’s machinery to improve relations and settle their differences.

In addition to territorial disputes, the League also tried to intervene in other conflicts between and within nations. Among its successes were its fight against the international trade in opium and sexual slavery and its work to alleviate the plight of refugees, particularly in Turkey in the period up to 1926. One of its innovations in this latter area was the 1922 introduction of the Nansen passport, the first internationally recognized identity card for stateless refugees.

The League failed to intervene in many conflicts leading up to World War II, including the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second Sino-Japanese War.

The onset of the Second World War demonstrated that the League had failed in its primary purpose, the prevention of another world war. There were a variety of reasons for this failure, many connected to general weaknesses within the organization, such as voting structure that made ratifying resolutions difficult and incomplete representation among world nations. Additionally, the power of the League was limited by the United States’ refusal to join.

The Gap in the Bridge

The sign reads “This League of Nations Bridge was designed by the President of the U.S.A.” Cartoon from Punch magazine, December 10, 1920, satirizing the gap left by the U.S. not joining the League.

A political cartoon that depicts a bridge made of stones labeled “Belgium,” “France,” “England,” and “Italy,” with the middle stone missing and held only by a brace. To the side of the bridge Uncle Sam is lounging on the missing stone labeled “Keystone: USA”.

29.6: The First Modern War

29.6.1: New Technology in World War I

World War I began as a clash of 20th-century technology and 19th-century tactics, causing ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides.

Learning Objective

Analyze the specific developments that made World War I different from previous wars

Key Points

• Technology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to warfare in general.
• One could characterize the early years of the First World War as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century warfare.
• On land, only in the final year of the war did the major armies make effective steps to revolutionize command and control,  adapt to the modern battlefield, and harness the myriad new technologies to effective military purposes. 
• Tactical reorganizations (such as shifting the focus of command from the 100+ man company to the 10+ man squad) went hand-in-hand with armored cars, the first submachine guns, and automatic rifles that a single individual soldier could carry and use.
• Although the use of poison gas was banned by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Germany turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. 
• Although the concept of the tank had been suggested as early as the 1890s, few authorities showed interest until the trench stalemate of World War I caused serious contemplation of unending war and ever escalating casualties. By 1917, tanks were used by both the British and French armies to terrifying effect.

Key Terms

Zeppelin

A type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin’s notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893. During World War I, the German military made extensive used these as bombers and scouts, killing over 500 people in bombing raids in Britain.

mustard gas

A cytotoxic and vesicant chemical warfare agent with the ability to form large blisters on exposed skin and in the lungs. Within 24 hours of exposure to this agent, victims experience intense itching and skin irritation, which gradually turns into large blisters filled with yellow fluid wherever the agent contacted the skin.

U-boat

Military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role (commerce raiding), enforcing a naval blockade against enemy shipping.

World War I began as a clash of 20th-century technology and 19th-century tactics, with large ensuing casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernized and used telephones, wireless communication, armoured cars, tanks, and aircraft.

Ground Warfare

Infantry formations were reorganized so that 100-man companies were no longer the main unit of maneuver; instead, squads of 10 or so men under the command of a junior NCO were favored.

In 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often-overlooked field telephone. Counter-battery missions became commonplace, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, in which hundreds often died for each meter gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during World War I, such as Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Germans employed the Haber process of nitrogen fixation to provide forces with a constant supply of gunpowder despite the British naval blockade. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties and consumed vast quantities of explosives. The large number of head wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and U.S. troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design with improvements still in use today.

The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas, and phosgene. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. The unknown gas appeared to be a simple smoke screen, used to hide attacking soldiers, and Allied troops were ordered to the front trenches to repel the expected attack. The gas had a devastating effect, killing many defenders; however, because attackers were also killed when the wind changed. In the end, relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures like gas masks were quickly created. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing were both outlawed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness though they captured the public imagination.

Australian infantry with gas masks, Ypres, 1917.

The use of chemical warfare, such chlorine gas, mustard gas, and phosgene, had devastating effects until the development of effective countermeasures such as the gas mask.

Australian infantry with gas masks in a trench.

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns, weighing dozens of tons apiece. The German ones were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 62 miles, though shells were relatively light at 210 pounds.

Trenches, machine guns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate. The British and the French sought a solution with the creation of the tank and mechanized warfare. The first British tanks were used during the Battle of the Somme on September 15, 1916. Mechanical reliability was an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds, and they showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 by breaking the Hindenburg Line while combined arms teams captured 8,000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Meanwhile, the French introduced the first tanks with a rotating turret, the Renault FT, which became a decisive tool of the victory. The conflict also saw the introduction of light automatic weapons and submachine guns, such as the Lewis Gun, the Browning automatic rifle, and the Bergmann MP18.

British Vickers machine gun crew on the Western Front

The machine gun emerged as one of the decisive technologies during World War I. 

Photo of soldiers in a trench operating a large machine gun.

Another new weapon, the flamethrower, was first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces. Although not of high tactical value, the flamethrower was a powerful, demoralising weapon that caused terror on the battlefield.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for automobiles and trucks eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.

Naval Developments

Germany deployed U-boats (submarines) after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the Kaiserliche Marine employed them to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies. The deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R-1, 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two abandoned in 1918). To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.

Aviation Advances

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya in October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year. By 1914, their military utility was obvious. They were initially used for reconnaissance and ground attack. To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed. Strategic bombers were created, principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins as well. Towards the end of the conflict, aircraft carriers were used for the first time, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a raid to destroy the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in 1918.

Recognized for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets for enemy aircraft. To defend them against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were even tried. Thus, the reconnaissance value of blimps and balloons contributed to the development of air-to-air combat between all types of aircraft and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected. The Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines. The resulting panic led to the diversion of several squadrons of fighters from France.

29.6.2: Total War

Almost the whole of Europe and its colonial empires mobilized to wage World War I, directing almost all aspects of life including industry, finance, labor, and food production toward military purposes.

Learning Objective

Discuss the costs of total war

Key Points

• Total war, such as World War I and World War II, mobilizes all of the resources of society (industry, finance, labor, etc.) to fight the war.
• It also expands the targets of war to include any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure.
• World War I mobilized almost all European nations and its colonies into total war with enormous costs, not only to military personnel lost in battle, but to whole societies, dramatically affecting finance, culture, and industry.
• Civilians back home had to make major adjustments to their lifestyles: women took over for men in industry, food rationing came into effect, and business owners changed or adjusted their products to support the war.
• One estimate suggests that the Allies spent $147 billion on the war and the Central Powers only $61 billion.

Key Terms

total war

Warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs.

conscription

The compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often military service.

Total war includes all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all societal resources to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs. The American-English Dictionary defines total war as “war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded.”

In the mid-19th century, scholars identified “total war” as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, to an extent inapplicable to other conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes and even sometimes vanishes entirely as opposing sides consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, as part of the war effort.

Actions that characterize the post-19th century concept of total war include: blockade and sieging of population centers, as with the Allied blockade of Germany; commerce-raiding tonnage war, and unrestricted submarine warfare, as with privateering and the German U-Boat campaigns.

World War I as Total War

Almost the whole of Europe and its colonial empires mobilized to wage World War I. Young men were removed from production jobs to serve in military roles and were replaced by women. Rationing occurred on the home fronts. Conscription was common in most European countries but controversial in English-speaking countries. About 750,000 lost their lives. Though most deaths were young unmarried men, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers. In the United States, conscription began in 1917 and was generally well-received, with a few pockets of opposition in isolated rural areas. Bulgaria went so far as to mobilize a quarter of its population or 800,000 people, a greater share than any other country during the war. 

In Britain,  government propaganda posters were used to divert all attention to the war on the home front. They influenced public opinion about what to eat and what occupations to pursue, and changed the attitude toward the war effort to one of support. Even the Music Hall was used as propaganda, with songs aimed at recruitment.

After the failure of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the large British offensive in March 1915, the British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal John French blamed the lack of progress on insufficient and poor-quality artillery shells. This led to the Shell Crisis of 1915, which brought down both the Liberal government and Premiership of H. H. Asquith. He formed a new coalition government dominated by liberals and appointed David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front.

As young men left the farms for the front, domestic food production in Britain and Germany fell. In Britain the response was to import more food, despite the German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, and to introduce rationing. The Royal Navy’s blockade of German ports prevented Germany from importing food and hastened German capitulation by creating a food crisis in Germany.

Economics of World War I

All of the powers in 1914 expected a short war; none had made any economic preparations for a long war, such as stockpiling food or critical raw materials. The longer the war went on, the greater the advantages of the Allies, with their larger, deeper, more versatile economies and better access to global supplies. As historians Broadberry and Harrison conclude, once stalemate set in late in 1914:

The greater Allied capacity for taking risks, absorbing the cost of mistakes, replacing losses, and accumulating overwhelming quantitative superiority should eventually have turned the balance against Germany.

The Allies had much more potential wealth they could spend on the war. One estimate (using 1913 U.S. dollars) is that the Allies spent $147 billion on the war and the Central Powers only $61 billion. Among the Allies, Britain and its Empire spent $47 billion and the U.S. $27 billion; among the Central Powers, Germany spent $45 billion.

Total war demanded total mobilization of all the nation’s resources for a common goal. Manpower had to be channeled into the front lines (all the powers except the United States and Britain had large trained reserves designed just for that). Behind the lines labor power had to be redirected away from less necessary activities that were luxuries during a total war. In particular, vast munitions industries were created to provide shells, guns, warships, uniforms, airplanes, and a hundred other weapons both old and new. Agriculture had to be mobilized as well to provide food for both civilians and soldiers (many of whom had been farmers and needed to be replaced by old men, boys, and women), as well as horses to move supplies. 

Transportation in general was a challenge, especially when Britain and Germany each tried to intercept merchant ships headed for the enemy. Finance was a special challenge. Germany financed the Central Powers. Britain financed the Allies until 1916, when it ran out of money and had to borrow from the United States. The U.S. took over the financing of the Allies in 1917 with loans that it insisted be repaid after the war. The victorious Allies looked to defeated Germany in 1919 to pay reparations that would cover some of their costs. Above all, it was essential to conduct the mobilization in such a way that the short-term confidence of the people was maintained, the long-term power of the political establishment was upheld, and the long-term economic health of the nation was preserved.

Total War

British poster encouraging investment in war bonds. Total war involved immense economic and labor costs through the restructuring of finance and industry toward military purposes.

The poster depicts a pair of hands full of silver coins transforming into bullets as the hands dump them out.

28.3: France in Africa

28.3.1: French West Africa

Learning Objective

List some of the modern-day countries that were once part of France’s West African territories

Key Points

• As a part of the Scramble for Africa, France planned to establish a continuous west-east axis of the continent.
• During this time the Voulet–Chanoine Mission, a military expedition, was sent from Senegal in 1898 to conquer the Chad Basin and unify all French territories in West Africa.
• Until the unification of these colonies into French West Africa, these conquered areas were usually governed by French Army officers and dubbed “Military Territories.”
• The administrative structure of French colonial possessions in West Africa, while more homogeneous than neighboring British possessions, was marked by variety and flux. However, the Cercle system at the lowest level was a constant.
• A Cercle was the smallest unit of French political administration in French Colonial Africa as headed by a European officer. It consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages headed by village chiefs.

Key Term

Cercle system

The smallest unit of French political administration in French Colonial Africa that was headed by a European officer. A cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was instituted in France’s African colonies from 1895 to 1946.

French West Africa (French: Afrique occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Côte d’Ivoire, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. The capital of the federation was Dakar. The federation existed from 1895 until 1960.

As the French pursued their part in the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s and 1890s, they conquered large inland areas, and at first ruled them as either a part of the existing Senegal colony or as independent entities. These conquered areas were usually governed by French Army officers and dubbed “Military Territories.” In the late 1890s, the French government began to rein in the territorial expansion of its “officers on the ground,” and transferred all territories west of Gabon to a single governor based in Senegal, reporting directly to the Minister of Overseas Affairs. The first governor general of Senegal was named in 1895, and in 1904, the territories he oversaw were formally named French West Africa (AOF). Gabon would later become the seat of its own federation, French Equatorial Africa (AEF), which would border its western neighbor on the modern boundary between Niger and Chad.

King N’Diagaye, a local chief near Dakar Senegal, receiving a French Administrator. c.1910.

Colonial Structure of the AOF

The administrative structure of French colonial possessions in West Africa, while more homogeneous than neighboring British possessions, was marked by variety and flux. Throughout the history of the AOF, individual colonies and military territories were reorganized numerous times. Each colony of French West Africa was administered by a lieutenant governor responsible to the governor general in Dakar. Only the governor general received orders from Paris, via the minister of Colonies. The minister, with the approval of the French National Assembly, chose lieutenants governor and governors general.

Despite this state of flux, and with the exception of the Senegalese Communes, the administrative structure of French rule at the lower levels remained constant, based upon the Cercle system. This was the smallest unit of French political administration in French Colonial Africa that was headed by a European officer. They ranged in size, but French Sudan (modern Mali) consisted of less than a dozen Cercles for most of its existence. Thus, a Cercle Commander might be the absolute authority over hundreds of thousands of Africans. A Cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was almost universal in France’s African colonies from 1895 to 1946.

Below the “Cercle Commander” was a series of African “Chefs de canton” and “Chefs du Village”: “chiefs” appointed by the French and subject to removal by the Europeans. Regardless of source, chiefs were given the right to arm small numbers of guards and made responsible for the collection of taxes, the recruitment of forced labor, and the enforcement of “Customary Law.” In general, Canton Chiefs served at the behest of their Cercle Commander and were left to see to their own affairs as long as calm was maintained and administrative orders carried out.

28.3.2: The Maghreb

Learning Objective

Discuss the French presence in Northern Africa and how these colonies differed from others

Key Points

• French North Africa, which at the height of French colonial control amounted to most of the Maghreb region, began with the French invasion of Algeria in 1830.
• From 1848, when France officially made Algeria a colony, until independence in 1962, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France. Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants.
• The French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881 during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the Russians, and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956.
• During French rule of Tunisia, major developments and improvements were undertaken in several areas, including transport and infrastructure, industry, the financial system, public health, and administration, although French businesses and citizen were favored, to the anger and resentment of the Tunisians.
• The French Protectorate in Morocco was established by the Treaty of Fez in 1912; it had been a Spanish protectorate since 1884.
• In opposition to the approach taken in Algeria and Tunisia, in Morocco, the French abandoned their typical assimilationist approach to culture and education, instead using urban planning and colonial education to prevent cultural mixing and uphold the traditional society of Morocco.

Key Terms

pieds-noirs

A term referring to Christian and Jewish people whose families migrated from all parts of the Mediterranean to French Algeria, the French protectorate in Morocco, or the French protectorate of Tunisia, where many lived for several generations. They were expelled at the end of French rule in North Africa between 1956 and 1962. The term usually includes the North African Jews, who had been living there for many centuries but were awarded French citizenship by the 1870 Crémieux Decree.

protectorate

A dependent territory that has been granted local autonomy and independence while still largely controlled by another sovereign state. In exchange, the dependent state usually accepts specified obligations, which ay vary depending on the nature of their relationship. They are different from colonies as they have local rulers.

Maghreb

Previously known as Barbary Coast, this area is usually defined as much or most of the region of western North Africa or Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. The traditional definition includes the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.

French North Africa was a collection of territories in North Africa controlled by France and centering on French Algeria. At its height, it was a large part of the Maghreb.

The origins of French North Africa lay in the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In 1830, the French captured Algiers and from 1848 until independence in 1962, Algeria was treated as an integral part of France. Seeking to expand their influence, the French established protectorates to the east and west of it. The French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881 following a military invasion, and the French protectorate in Morocco in 1912. These lasted until 1955 in the case of Morocco and 1956 when full Tunisian independence arrived.

Until its independence, French Algeria had been part of metropolitan France (i.e., not an overseas territory) since before World War I.

French North Africa ended soon after the Évian Accords of March 1962, which led to the Algerian independence referendum of July 1962.

French Algeria

The French conquest of Algeria took place between 1830 and 1847. It was initiated in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration by Charles X, as an attempt to increase his popularity among the French, particularly in Paris where many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars lived. He intended to bolster patriotic sentiment and distract attention from ineptly handled domestic policies. In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a naval blockade. France then invaded and quickly seized Algiers in 1830, and rapidly took control of other coastal communities. Amid internal political strife in France, decisions were repeatedly made to retain control over the territory, and additional military forces were brought in over the following years to quell resistance in the interior of the country. The methods used to establish French hegemony reached genocidal proportions and war, as famine and disease led to the death of between 500,000 and 1 million Algerians.

French Invasion of Algeria

Fighting at the gates of Algiers in 1830.

A painting depicting French soldiers firing upon the Algerian army at the gates of Algiers during the invasion of Algeria.

From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest of French North Africa, was never considered part of France. One of France’s longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants known as pieds-noirs. However, indigenous Muslims remained a majority of the territory’s population throughout its history. Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population with its lack of political and economic status fueled calls for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. The war concluded in 1962 when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.

French Protectorate of Tunisia

The French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881 during the French colonial Empire era and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956.

Tunisia formed a province of the decaying Ottoman Empire but enjoyed a large measure of autonomy under the bey Muhammad III as-Sadiq. In 1877, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Russian victory foreshadowed the dismemberment of the empire, including independence for several Balkan possessions and international discussions about the future of the North African provinces. The Berlin Congress of 1878 convened to resolve the Ottoman question. Britain, although opposed to total dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, offered France control of Tunisia in return for Cyprus. Germany, seeing the French claim as a way to divert attention from vengeful action in Europe (where France suffered defeat at Prussian hands in 1870-1) and little concerned about the southern Mediterranean, agreed to allow France to rule in Tunisia. Italy, which had economic interests in Tunisia, strongly opposed the plan but was unable to impose its will.

The French presence in Tunisia came five decades after their occupation of neighboring Algeria, when the French were inexperienced and lacked the knowledge to develop a colony. Both countries were possessions of the Ottoman Empire for three centuries, yet had long ago attained political autonomy from the Sultan in Constantinople. Before the French arrived, Tunisia began modern reforms, but financial difficulties mounted until the installation of a commission of European creditors. After its occupation, the French government assumed Tunisia’s international obligations. Major developments and improvements were undertaken by the French in several areas, including transport and infrastructure, industry, the financial system, public health, and administration. Yet French business and its citizens were favored, which angered Tunisians. Their nationalism was early expressed in speech and in print; political organization followed. The independence movement was already active before World War I, and continued to gain strength against mixed French opposition. Its ultimate aim was achieved in 1956 when it became the Republic of Tunisia.

Congress of Berlin

A depiction of the Congress of Berlin, which resulted in France receiving Tunisia from Britain.

A painting of the Congress of Berlin, which depicts a few dozen men standing and sitting around a large table, some of them shaking hands.

French Protectorate in Morocco

France officially established a protectorate over Morocco with the Treaty of Fez in 1912, ending what remained of the country’s de facto independence. From a legal point of view, the treaty did not deprive Morocco of its status as a sovereign state. The Sultan reigned but did not rule. Sultan Abdelhafid abdicated in favor of his brother Yusef after signing the treaty. On April 17, 1912, Moroccan infantrymen mutinied in the French garrison in Fez, in the 1912 Fez riots. The Moroccans were unable to take the city and were defeated by a French relief force.

In establishing their protectorate over much of Morocco, the French had the experience of the conquest of Algeria and of their protectorate over Tunisia; the latter was the model for their Moroccan policy. There were, however, important differences. First, the protectorate was established only two years before the outbreak of World War I, which brought with it a new attitude toward colonial rule. Rejecting the typical French assimilationist approach to culture and education as a liberal fantasy, Morocco’s conservative French rulers attempted to use urban planning and colonial education to prevent cultural mixing and uphold the traditional society upon which the French depended for collaboration. Second, Morocco had a thousand-year tradition of independence; though it was strongly influenced by the civilization of Muslim Iberia, it had never been subject to Ottoman rule. These circumstances and the proximity of Morocco to Spain created a special relationship between the two countries.

Under the protectorate, French civil servants allied themselves with the French colonists and their supporters in France to prevent any moves in the direction of Moroccan autonomy. As pacification proceeded, the French government promoted economic development, particularly the exploitation of Morocco’s mineral wealth, the creation of a modern transportation system, and the development of a modern agriculture sector geared to the French market. Tens of thousands of colonists entered Morocco and bought large amounts of the rich agricultural land. Interest groups that formed among these elements continually pressured France to increase its control over Morocco.

In late 1955, Mohammed V successfully negotiated the gradual restoration of Moroccan independence within a framework of French-Moroccan interdependence. The sultan agreed to institute reforms that would transform Morocco into a constitutional monarchy with a democratic form of government. In February 1956, Morocco acquired limited home rule. Further negotiations for full independence culminated in the French-Moroccan Agreement signed in Paris on March 2, 1956. On April 7 of that year France officially relinquished its protectorate in Morocco.

28.3.3: French Efforts toward Assimilation

Learning Objective

Compare the French policy of assimilation to the manner in which other imperialist powers treated their subjugated populations 

Key Points

• French colonial policy as early as the 1780s was distinguished by the ideology of assimilation. By adopting French language and culture, the indigenous populations under colonial rule could eventually become French, sharing in the equal rights of citizenship.
• This policy was put most famously into practice in the oldest French colonial towns, known as the Four Communes.
• During the French Revolution of 1848, slavery was abolished and the Four Communes were given voting rights and the right to elect a Deputy to the Assembly in Paris, which they did in 1912 with Blaise Diagne, the first black man to hold a position in the French government.
• The promise of equal rights and respect under the assimilation policy was often merely an abstraction, as the assimilated Africans (termed Évolué) still faced substantial discrimination in Africa and France.
• In addition, in the largest and most populous colonies, a strict separation between “sujets français” (all the natives) and “citoyens français” (all males of European extraction), along with different rights and duties, was maintained.

Key Terms

civilizing mission

A rhetorical rationale for intervention or colonization, purporting to contribute to the spread of civilization and used mostly in relation to the Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Évolué

A French term used during the colonial era to refer to a native African or Asian who had “evolved” by becoming Europeanized through education or assimilation and had accepted European values and patterns of behavior.

Blaise Diagne

A French political leader and mayor of Dakar. He was the first black African elected to the French Chamber of Deputies (1914), and the first to hold a position in the French government.

Four Communes

The four oldest colonial towns in French-controlled West Africa, in which the theory of assimilation was put into practice with the aim of turning African natives into “French” men by educating them in the language and French culture. In 1916, natives were granted full voting rights in these colonies.

Colonial Assimilation

A hallmark of the French colonial project in the late 19th century and early 20th century was the civilizing mission (mission civilisatrice), the principle that it was Europe’s duty to bring civilization to “backward” people. Rather than merely govern colonial populations, the Europeans would attempt to Westernize them in accordance with a colonial ideology known as “assimilation.”

France pursued a policy of assimilation throughout much of its colonial empire. In contrast with British imperial policy, the French taught their subjects that by adopting French language and culture, they could eventually become French. Natives of these colonies were considered French citizens as long as French culture and customs were adopted. This also meant they would have the rights and duties of French citizens.

The initial stages of assimilation in France were observed in the “first French empire” during the Revolution of 1789. In 1794, during the revolutionary National Assembly, attended by the deputies of the Caribbean and French India, a law was passed that declared: “all men resident in the colonies, without distinction of color, are French citizens and enjoy all the rights assured by the Constitution.”

In the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte rule, new laws were created for the colonies to replace the previous universal laws that applied to both France and the colonies. Napoleon Bonaparte rejected assimilation and declared that the colonies would be governed under separate laws. He believed that if the universal laws continued, the residents of the colonies would eventually have the power to control the local governments, which would have an adverse effect on “cheap slave labor.” Napoleon at the same time reinstated slavery in the Caribbean possessions. 

Even with Napoleon Bonaparte’s rejection of assimilation, many still believed it to be a good practice. On July 24, 1833, a law was passed that gave all free colony residents “civil and political rights.” In the Revolution in 1848, “assimilation theory” was restored and colonies again were under the universal rules.

Aside from the Four Communes in Senegal (discussed below), for the most part, in the largest and most populous colonies, a strict separation between “sujets français” (all the natives) and “citoyens français” (all males of European extraction), along with different rights and duties, was maintained. As pointed out in a 1927 treatise on French colonial law, the granting of French citizenship to natives “was not a right, but rather a privilege.” Two 1912 decrees dealing with French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa enumerated the conditions that a native had to meet in order to be granted French citizenship, which included speaking and writing French, earning a decent living, and displaying good moral standards. From 1830 to 1946, only between 3,000 and 6,000 native Algerians were granted French citizenship.

French conservatives denounced the assimilationist policies as products of a dangerous liberal fantasy. Unlike in Algeria, Tunisia, and French West Africa, in the Protectorate of Morocco, the French administration attempted to use urban planning and colonial education to prevent cultural mixing and uphold the traditional society upon which the French depended for collaboration, with mixed results. After World War II, the segregationist approach modeled in Morocco had been discredited and assimilationism enjoyed a brief revival.

The Four Communes

The famous “Four Communes” in Senegal are one of the foremost examples of the French assimilation project. The Four Communes were the four oldest colonial towns in French-controlled west Africa. In 1848, the French Second Republic extended the rights of full French citizenship to the inhabitants of Saint-Louis, Dakar, Gorée, and Rufisque. While those who were born in these towns could technically enjoy all the rights of native French citizens, substantial legal and social barriers prevented the full exercise of these rights, especially by those seen by authorities as “full blooded” Africans. 

The residents of the Four Communes were referred as originaires. When they had been exposed to assimilation for a long enough period, they would become a “typical French citizen…expected to be everything except in the color of his skin, a Frenchman.” Those few Africans from the Four Communes who were able to pursue higher education could “rise'” to be termed Évolué (‘Evolved’) and were nominally granted full French citizenship, including the vote. They were considered “African Elite.” One of those elites was Blaise Diagne, the first black deputy in the French assembly. He “defended the status of the originaires as French citizens.” During his service as deputy, he proposed a resolution that would allow the residents of the Four Communes all the rights of a French Citizen, which included being able to serve in the Army. This was especially important during World War I. The resolution passed on October 19, 1915. Despite this legal framework, Évolués still faced substantial discrimination in Africa and the Metropole alike.  The Four Communes remained the only French colony where the indigenous peoples received French citizenship until 1944.

Blaise Diagne

Blaise Diagne, a Senegalese man who attained French citizenship and rose to political prominence during the height of the assimilation movement in colonial France, was the first black African elected to the French Chamber of Deputies and the first to hold a position in the French government.

A photo portrait of Blaise Diagne

28.4: Africa and the United Kingdom

28.4.1: Egypt under the British Influence

British rule over Egypt lasted from 1882, when the British succeeded in defeating the Egyptian Army during the Anglo-Egyptian War and took control of the country, to the 1952 Egyptian revolution that made Egypt an independent republic.

Learning Objective

Describe changes in Egypt after the British began to take a strong interest in the country

Key Points

• British control of Egypt, which at first took the form of indirect and informal rule and later as an official protectorate, began in the 1880s.
• In 1882 opposition to European control led to growing tension among notable natives, with the most dangerous opposition coming from the army. By June Egypt was in the hands of nationalists opposed to European domination of the country.
• The British succeeded in defeating the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir in September and took control of the country. 
• The purpose of the invasion was to restore political stability and reinforce international controls which were in place to streamline European economic influence in Egypt.
• Lord Cromer, Britain’s Chief Representative in Egypt at the time, viewed Egypt’s financial reforms as part of a long-term objective. 
• Cromer took the view that political stability needed financial stability, and embarked on a program of long-term investment in Egypt’s productive resources, especially the cotton economy, the mainstay of the country’s export earnings.
• During British occupation and later control, Egypt developed into a regional commercial and trading destination.
• In 1914, as a result of the declaration of war with the Ottoman Empire of which Egypt was nominally a part, Britain declared a protectorate over Egypt and deposed the anti-British Khedive, Abbas II, replacing him with his uncle Husayn Kamel, who was made Sultan of Egypt by the British.

Key Terms

Suez Crisis

An invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and remove Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser from power. After the fighting started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated Great Britain and France and strengthened Nasser.

Khedivate of Egypt

An autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces, which brought an end to the short-lived French occupation of Lower Egypt.

Anglo-Egyptian War

An 1882 war between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha and vastly expanded British influence over the country at the expense of the French.

The history of Egypt under the British lasts from 1882, when it was occupied by British forces during the Anglo-Egyptian War, until 1956, when the last British forces withdrew in accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954 after the Suez Crisis. The first period of British rule (1882–1914) is often called the “veiled protectorate.” During this time the Khedivate of Egypt remained an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, and the British occupation had no legal basis but constituted a de facto protectorate. This state of affairs lasted until the Ottoman Empire joined the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914 and Britain unilaterally declared a protectorate over Egypt. The ruling khedive was deposed and his successor, Hussein Kamel, declared himself Sultan of Egypt independent of the Ottomans in December 1914.

The formal protectorate over Egypt was brought to an end by the unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence on February 18, 1922. Shortly afterwards, Sultan Fuad I declared himself King of Egypt, but the British occupation continued in accordance with several reserve clauses in the declaration of independence. The situation was normalized in the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, which granted Britain the right to station troops in Egypt for the defense of the Suez Canal, its link with the Indian Empire. Britain also continued to control the training of the Egyptian Army. During the Second World War (1939–45), Egypt came under attack from Italian Libya on account of the British presence there, although Egypt itself remained neutral until late in the war. After the war Egypt sought to modify the treaty, but it was abrogated in its entirety by an anti-British government in October 1951. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the British agreed to withdraw their troops and by June 1956 had done so. Britain went to war against Egypt over the Suez Canal in late 1956, but with insufficient international support was forced to back down.

Veiled Protectorate (1882–1913)

Throughout the 19th century, the ruling dynasty of Egypt spent vast sums of money on infrastructural development. However, in keeping with its own military and foreign origin, the dynasty’s economic development was almost wholly oriented toward military dual-use goals. Consequently, despite vast sums of European and other foreign capital, actual economic production and resulting revenues were insufficient to repay the loans. Consequently, the country teetered toward economic dissolution and implosion. In turn, European and foreign finances took control of the treasury of Egypt, forgave debt in return for taking control of the Suez Canal, and reoriented economic development toward capital gain.

However, by 1882 Islamic and Arabic Nationalist opposition to European influence and settlement in the Middle East led to growing tension among notable natives, especially in Egypt which then as now was the most powerful, populous, and influential of Arab countries. The most dangerous opposition during this period was from the Albanian- and Mamluke-dominated Egyptian army, which saw the reorientation of economic development away from their control as a threat to their privileges.

A large military demonstration in September 1881 forced the Khedive Tewfiq to dismiss his Prime Minister and rule by decree. Many of the Europeans retreated to specially designed quarters suited for defense or heavily European settled cities such as Alexandria.

Consequently, in April 1882 France and Great Britain sent warships to Alexandria to bolster the Khedive amidst a turbulent climate and protect European lives and property. In turn, Egyptian nationalists spread fear of invasion throughout the country to bolster Islamic and Arabian revolutionary action. Tawfiq moved to Alexandria for fear of his own safety as army officers led by Ahmed Urabi began to take control of the government. By June, Egypt was in the hands of nationalists opposed to European domination of the country, and the new revolutionary government began nationalizing all assets in Egypt. 

Anti-European violence broke out in Alexandria, prompting a British naval bombardment of the city. Fearing the intervention of outside powers or the seizure of the canal by the Egyptians, in conjunction with an Islamic revolution in the Empire of India, the British led an Anglo-Indian expeditionary force at both ends of the Suez Canal in August 1882. Simultaneously, French forces landed in Alexandria and the northern end of the canal. Both joined together and maneuvered to meet the Egyptian army. The combined Anglo-French-Indian army easily defeated the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir in September and took control of the country putting Tawfiq back in control.

The purpose of the invasion was to restore political stability to Egypt under a government of the Khedive and international controls that were in place to streamline Egyptian financing since 1876. It is unlikely that the British expected a long-term occupation from the outset; however, Lord Cromer, Britain’s Chief Representative in Egypt at the time, viewed Egypt’s financial reforms as part of a long-term objective. Cromer took the view that political stability needed financial stability, and embarked on a program of long-term investment in Egypt’s agricultural revenue sources, the largest of which was cotton. To accomplish this, Cromer worked to improve the Nile’s irrigation system through multiple large projects such as the construction of the Aswan Dam, the Nile Barrage, and an increase of canals available to agricultural-focused lands.

During British occupation and control, Egypt developed into a regional commercial and trading destination. Immigrants from less-stable parts of the region, including Greeks, Jews and Armenians, began to flow into Egypt. The number of foreigners in the country rose from 10,000 in the 1840s to around 90,000 in the 1880s and more than 1.5 million by the 1930s.

The Veiled Protectorate of Egypt

A gathering of Egyptian, Turkish, and British royalty in 1911. Queen Mary seated and King George V standing at extreme right.

Gathering of Egyptian, Turkish and British royalty in 1911. Queen Mary seated and King George V standing at extreme right.

28.4.2: South Africa and the Boer Wars

Ethnic, political, and social tensions among European colonial powers, indigenous Africans, and English and Dutch settlers led to open conflict in a series of wars and revolts between 1879 and 1915, most notably the first and second Boer Wars. These would have lasting repercussions on the entire region of southern Africa.

Learning Objective

Explain the events of the Boer Wars and how they impacted the British role in South Africa

Key Points

• The Transvaal Boer republic was forcefully annexed by Britain in 1877 as part of the attempt to consolidate the states of southern Africa under British rule. 
• Long-standing Boer (Dutch-speaking farmers) resentment turned into full-blown rebellion in the first Boer War, which broke out in 1880.
• The conflict ended almost as soon as it began with a decisive Boer victory at Battle of Majuba Hill (February 1881), leading to the founding of the South African Republic.
• The Second Boer War started on October 11, 1899, and ended on May 31, 1902. Great Britain defeated two Boer nations in South Africa: the South African Republic (Republic of Transvaal) and the Orange Free State.
• The British were overconfident and under-prepared; the Boers were very well-armed and struck first, besieging Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking in early 1900 and winning important battles at Colenso, Magersfontein, and Stormberg.
• Staggered, the British brought in large numbers of soldiers and fought back with overwhelming force, forcing the Boers to revert to guerrilla warfare.
• The British solution was to set up complex nets of block houses, strong points, and barbed wire fences, partitioning off the entire conquered territory and relocating civilians into concentration camps. Many of the latter group died of disease, especially children, who mostly lacked immunity. This caused scandal in England.
• The Boers were eventually defeated, leading to the absorption of South Africa into the British Empire as the Union of South Africa in 1910.

Key Terms

apartheid

A system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991, when it was abolished.

Boer

The Dutch and Afrikaans word for “farmer.” In South Africa, it was used to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier during the 18th century. For a time the Dutch East India Company controlled this area, but it was taken over by the United Kingdom.

South African Wars

Ethnic, political, and social tensions among European colonial powers, indigenous Africans, and English and Dutch settlers led to open conflict in a series of wars and revolts between 1879 and 1915 that would have lasting repercussions on the entire region of southern Africa. Pursuit of commercial empire as well as individual aspirations, especially after the discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886), drove these developments.

The various wars of this era are usually studied as independent conflicts. They include the first and second Anglo-Boer War, the Anglo-Zulu War, the Basotho Gun War, the 9th Frontier War, and others. However, it is instructive also to see them as outbreaks in a far larger wave of change and conflict affecting the subcontinent,  beginning with the “Confederation Wars” of the 1870s and 80s; escalating with the rise of Cecil Rhodes and the struggle for control of gold and diamond resources; and leading up to the Second Anglo-Boer War and the Union of South Africa in 1910.

Background

The southern part of the African continent was dominated in the 19th century by a set of epic struggles to create a single unified state. British expansion into southern Africa was fueled by three prime factors: first, the desire to control the trade routes to India that passed around the Cape; second, the discovery in 1868 of huge mineral deposits of diamonds around Kimberley on the joint borders of the South African Republic (called the Transvaal by the British), the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony, and thereafter in 1886 in the Transvaal of a gold rush; and thirdly the race against other European colonial powers as part of general colonial expansion in Africa.

After the Battle of Blaauwberg, Britain had acquired the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa from the Dutch in 1815 during the Napoleonic Wars. Certain groups of Dutch-speaking settler farmers (“Boers”) resented British rule, even though British control brought some economic benefits.

The Trekboers were farmers gradually extending their range and territory with no agenda. The formal abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834 led to more organized groups of Boer settlers attempting to escape British rule, some travelling as far north as modern-day Mozambique. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 near the Vaal River, some 550 miles northeast of Cape Town, ended the isolation of the Boers in the interior and changed South African history. The discovery triggered a diamond rush that attracted people from all over the world, turning Kimberley into a town of 50,000 within five years and drawing the attention of British imperial interests.

First Boer War

The First Boer War, also known as the First Anglo-Boer War or the Transvaal War, was fought from December 1880 until March 1881 and was the first clash between the British and the South African Republic Boers. It was precipitated by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who annexed the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) for the British in 1877. The British consolidated their power over most of the colonies of South Africa in 1879 after the Anglo-Zulu War, and attempted to impose an unpopular system of confederation on the region, which resulted in protests from Boers.

Continued British indifference to Boer protests and increasing demands placed on the Boers triggered an all-out rebellion in late 1880. The issue that finally brought the conflict to a head was the seizure of a farm wagon over tax dues. The Boers held that the British seizure was illegal because they had never recognized the annexation of the Transvaal. 5,000 Boers assembled at a farm on December 8 and began deliberating a course of action. On December 13 they proclaimed the Transvaal’s independence and intent to establish a republican government, raising the Vierkleur, the old republican flag, and beginning the “war of independence.”

The battles of Bronkhorstspruit, Laing’s Nek, Schuinshoogte, and Majuba Hill proved disastrous for the British as they were outmaneuvered and outperformed by the highly mobile and skilled Boer marksmen. With the British commander-in-chief of Natal, George Pomeroy Colley, killed at Majuba, and British garrisons under siege across the entire Transvaal, the British were unwilling to further involve themselves in a war which was already seen as lost. As a result, William Gladstone’s British government signed a truce on March 6, and in the final peace treaty on March 23, 1881, gave the Boers self-government in the South African Republic (Transvaal) under a theoretical British oversight.

Second Boer War

The Second Boer War took place from October 11, 1899 – May 31, 1902. The war was fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (referred to as the Transvaal by the British). After a protracted, hard-fought war, the two independent republics lost and were absorbed into the British Empire.

The exact causes of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899 have been disputed ever since the events took place. Fault for the war has been placed on both sides. The Boers felt that the British intention was to again annex the Transvaal. Some feel that the British were coerced into war by the mining magnates, others that the British government manipulated the magnates into creating conditions that allowed the war to ignite. It appears that the British did not begin with the intention of annexation, but simply wanted to ensure that British strength and the regional economic and political stability of the British Empire remained unchanged. The British worried about popular support for the war and wanted to push the Boers to make the first move toward actual hostilities. This occurred when the Transvaal issued an ultimatum on October 9 for the British to withdraw all troops from their borders and recall their reinforcements, or they would “regard the action as a formal declaration of war.”

In all, the war cost around 75,000 lives — 22,000 British soldiers (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), 6,000-7,000 Boer Commandos, 20,000-28,000 Boer civilians (mostly women and children due to disease in concentration camps), and an estimated 20,000 black Africans, both Boer and British allies alike.

 The Boers fought bitterly against the British, refusing to surrender for years despite defeat. They reverted to guerrilla warfare under generals Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, Christiaan de Wet, and Koos de la Rey. As guerrillas without uniforms, the Boer fighters easily blended into the farmlands, which provided hiding places, supplies, and horses. The British solution was to set up complex nets of block houses, strong points, and barbed wire fences, partitioning off the entire conquered territory. The civilian farmers were relocated into concentration camps, where very large proportions died of disease, especially the children, who mostly lacked immunities.

The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging in the same month. The war resulted in the creation of the Transvaal Colony which in 1910 was incorporated into the Union of South Africa. The treaty ended the existence of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State as Boer republics and placed them within the British Empire.

The British rule of South Africa would have lasting impact throughout the 20th century. Among other harsh segregationist laws, including denial of voting rights to black people, the Union parliament enacted the 1913 Natives’ Land Act, which earmarked only eight percent of South Africa’s available land for black occupancy. White people, who constituted 20 percent of the population, held 90 percent of the land. The Land Act would form a cornerstone of legalized racial discrimination for the next nine decades, which reached its height during the period of apartheid from 1948-1991.

Boer Commandos

As guerrillas without uniforms, the Boer fighters easily blended into the farmlands, which provided hiding places, supplies, and horses.

Photo of Boer soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes, armed with rifles and ammunition.

28.4.3: Competition with France

During the Scramble for Africa, tensions between Britain and France were high. At several points the two nations reached the brink of war, but the situation was always diffused diplomatically.

Learning Objective

Compare and contrast the French and British Empires in Africa

Key Points

• During the Scramble for Africa in the 1870s and 1880s, the British and French generally recognized each other’s spheres of influence. Their imperial aims were mainly complementary, except in some areas of vital importance that led to major conflict.
• The British aimed to assert their influence on a North-South axis, from “Cape to Cairo,” as it was often called, from their colonies in South Africa to Egypt.
• This dream was largely supported by Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
• On the other hand, the French aimed to dominate Africa on a East-West axis to have an uninterrupted link between the Niger River and the Nile, hence controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region.
• These two aims intersected in Fashoda, which led to the climax of their conflicts in the Fashoda Incident.
• In 1898, French troops tried to claim an area in the Southern Sudan when a British force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived. 
• Under heavy pressure, the French withdrew and Britain took control over the area, leading to embarrassment for the French and an end to British-French conflict.

Key Terms

Entente Cordiale

A series of agreements signed on April 8, 1904, between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic, which saw a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, their signing marked the end of almost a thousand years of intermittent conflict between the two states and their predecessors.

Fashoda syndrome

A tendency within French foreign policy in Africa to assert French influence in areas that may be susceptible to British influence.

Fashoda Incident

The climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa in 1898. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile river sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from the Sudan. The French party and a British detachment met on friendly terms, but back in Europe, it became a war scare. The British held firm as both nations stood on the verge of war with heated rhetoric on both sides. Under heavy pressure the French withdrew, securing Anglo-Egyptian control over the area.

Cecil Rhodes

A British businessman, mining magnate, and politician in South Africa who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, he and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895.

French-British Relations

During the late 19th century, Africa was rapidly being claimed and exploited by European colonial powers. After the 1885 Berlin Conference on West Africa, Europe’s great powers went after any remaining lands in Africa that were not already under another European nation’s influence. This period is usually called the Scramble for Africa. The two principal powers involved were Britain and France, along with Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.During this era, tensions were high between France and Britain, especially over African issues. At several points, these issues brought the two nations to the brink of war, but the situation was always diffused diplomatically. One brief but dangerous dispute occurred during the Fashoda Incident when French troops tried to claim an area in the Southern Sudan, and a British force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived.

The French thrust into the African interior was mainly from the continent’s Atlantic coast (modern Senegal) eastward, through the Sahel along the southern border of the Sahara, a territory covering modern Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Chad. Their ultimate goal was an uninterrupted link between the Niger River and the Nile, hence controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region by virtue of their existing control over the caravan routes through the Sahara. France also had an outpost near the mouth of the Red Sea in Djibouti (French Somaliland), which could serve as an eastern anchor to an east-west belt of French territory across the continent.

The British, on the other hand, wanted to link their possessions in Southern Africa (modern South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Zambia), with their territories in East Africa (modern Kenya), and these two areas with the Nile basin. Sudan, which then included today’s South Sudan and Uganda, was the key to the fulfillment of these ambitions, especially since Egypt was already under British control. This proposed railway through Africa was made most famous by the British and South African political force Cecil Rhodes, who wanted Africa “painted [British] Red.”

The Rhodes Colossus

Cecil Rhodes spanning “Cape to Cairo,” symbolizing the British imperial ambitions of the late 19th century.

A cartoon depicting Cecil Rhodes standing over Africa, with one foot in South Africa and the other in Egypt.

If one draws a line from Cape Town to Cairo (Rhodes’ dream) and another line from Dakar to French Somaliland by the Red Sea in the Horn (the French ambition), these two lines intersect in eastern South Sudan near the town of Fashoda (present-day Kodok), explaining its strategic importance. The French east-west axis and the British north-south axis could not co-exist; the nation that could occupy and hold the crossing of the two axes would be the only one able to proceed with its plan, leading to the Fashoda Incident (discussed below).

During the 1870s and 1880s, the British and French generally recognized each other’s spheres of influence. The Suez Canal, initially built by the French, became a joint British-French project in 1875, as both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt (Urabi Revolt) prompted Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. France’s expansionist Prime Minister Jules Ferry was out of office, and the government was unwilling to send more than an intimidating fleet to the region. Britain established a protectorate, as France had a year earlier in Tunisia; popular opinion in France later considered this duplicity. It was about this time that the two nations established co-ownership of Vanuatu. The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 was also signed to resolve territory disagreements in western Africa.

Fashoda Incident

The Fashoda Incident was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa in 1898. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile river sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from the Sudan. The French party and a British detachment met on friendly terms, but back in Europe, it became a war scare. The British held firm as both nations stood on the verge of war with heated rhetoric on both sides. Under heavy pressure the French withdrew, securing Anglo-Egyptian control over the area. The status quo was recognized by an agreement between the two states acknowledging British control over Egypt, while France became the dominant power in Morocco. France had failed in its main goals. P.M.H. Bell says:

“Between the two governments there was a brief battle of wills, with the British insisting on immediate and unconditional French withdrawal from Fashoda. The French had to accept these terms, amounting to a public humiliation…Fashoda was long remembered in France as an example of British brutality and injustice.”

It was a diplomatic victory for the British as the French realized that in the long run they needed the friendship of Britain in case of a war between France and Germany. In March 1899, the French and British agreed that the source of the Nile and the Congo rivers should mark the frontier between their spheres of influence.

The Fashoda incident was the last serious colonial dispute between Britain and France, and its classic diplomatic solution is considered by most historians to be the precursor of the Entente Cordiale. It gave rise to the Fashoda syndrome in French foreign policy, or seeking to assert French influence in areas that might be susceptible to British influence.

Fashoda Incident

Central and East Africa, 1898, during the Fashoda Incident.

A map of central and east Africa, 1898, during the Fashoda Incident. It shows the various spheres of influence of different European powers, a North-South line indicating the British ambitions and a East-West line indicating French ambitions.

28.5: German Imperalism

28.5.1: Germany and the Desire for Colonies

Despite German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck’s opposition to overseas colonies, pressure from the German people to establish colonies for international prestige led to a significant empire during the Scramble for Africa.

Learning Objective

Analyze Germany’s efforts to obtain more influence in various areas of the globe

Key Points

• Prior to German unification in 1871, most of the focus of German foreign policy was on issues internal to the state and its European neighbors.
• This pragmatic attitude was mainly supported by the leading political figure of the time, Otto Von Bismarck, a major force behind unification.
• Bismarck disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion.
• The attitude toward colonialism shifted again during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who espoused a Weltpolitik foreign policy that emphasized aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy.
• The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the “Scramble for Africa” during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs.
• German colonies comprised territory that makes up 22 countries today, mostly in Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda.
• Germany lost control of its colonial empire at the beginning of World War I when its colonies were seized by its enemies in the first weeks of the war.

Key Terms

Otto von Bismarck

A conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s, he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, significantly and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germany’s position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace.

Weltpolitik

The foreign policy adopted by the Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in 1891, which marked a decisive break with former “Realpolitik.” The aim was to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy.

The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Short-lived attempts of colonization by individual German states occurred in preceding centuries, but crucial colonial efforts only began in 1884 with the Scramble for Africa. Germany lost control when World War I began and its colonies were seized by its enemies in the first weeks of the war. However. some military units held out longer: German South-West Africa surrendered in 1915, Kamerun in 1916, and German East Africa only in 1918 by war’s end. Germany’s colonial empire was officially confiscated with the Treaty of Versailles after Germany’s defeat in the war, and the various units became League of Nations mandates under the supervision (but not ownership) of one of the victorious powers.

Ambivalence Toward Colonialism

Until their 1871 unification, the German states had not concentrated on the development of a navy, and this essentially had precluded German participation in earlier imperialist scrambles for remote colonial territory – the so-called “place in the sun.” Germany seemed destined to play catch-up. The German states prior to 1870 retained separate political structures and goals, and German foreign policy up to and including the age of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck concentrated on resolving the “German question” in Europe and securing German interests on the continent.

Many Germans in the late 19th century viewed colonial acquisitions as a true indication of nationhood. Public opinion eventually arrived at an understanding that prestigious African and Pacific colonies went hand-in-hand with dreams of a world-class navy. Both aspirations would become reality, nurtured by a press replete with Kolonialfreunde (supporters of colonial acquisitions) and a myriad of geographical associations and colonial societies. Bismarck and many deputies in the Reichstag had no interest in colonial conquests merely to acquire square miles of territory.

In essence, Bismarck’s colonial motives were obscure as he had said repeatedly “… I am no man for colonies.” However, in 1884 he consented to the acquisition of colonies by the German Empire to protect trade, safeguard raw materials and export markets, and take opportunities for capital investment, among other reasons. In the very next year Bismarck shed personal involvement when he, according to Edward Crankshaw, “abandoned his colonial drive as suddenly and casually as he had started it” as if he had committed an error in judgment that could confuse the substance of his more significant policies. Bismarck even tried to give German South-West Africa away to the British. 

In 1891, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany made a decisive break with former “Realpolitik” of Bismarck and established “Weltpolitik” (“world policy”). The aim of Weltpolitik was to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy. The origins of the policy can be traced to a Reichstag debate in December 1897 during which German Foreign Secretary Bernhard von Bülow stated, “in one word: We wish to throw no one into the shade, but we demand our own place in the sun.”

Otto Von Bismarck’s Ambivalence

Cartoon from 1884. Bismarck is happy with other nations being busy “down there.”

A cartoon showing Otto Von Bismarck reading a book on social reform and smoking a pipe while other men below him scope out the lower hemisphere of the globe.

Acquisition of Colonies

The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the “Scramble for Africa” during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs. With the Germans joining the race for the last uncharted territories in Africa and the Pacific that had not yet been carved up, competition for colonies involved major European nations and several lesser powers.

The German effort included the first commercial enterprises in the 1850s and 1860s in West Africa, East Africa, the Samoan Islands, and the unexplored north-east quarter of New Guinea with adjacent islands. German traders and merchants began to establish themselves in the African Cameroon delta and the mainland coast across from Zanzibar. At Apia and the settlements Finschhafen, Simpsonhafen and the islands Neu-Pommern and Neu-Mecklenburg, trading companies newly fortified with credit began expansion into coastal landholding. Large African inland acquisitions followed, mostly to the detriment of native inhabitants. All in all, German colonies comprised territory that makes up 22 countries today, mostly in Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda.

As Bismarck was converted to the colonial idea by 1884, he favored “chartered company” land management rather than establishment of colonial government due to financial considerations. Although temperate zone cultivation flourished, the demise and often failure of tropical low-land enterprises contributed to changing Bismarck’s view. He reluctantly acquiesced to pleas for help to deal with revolts and armed hostilities by often powerful rulers whose lucrative slaving activities seemed at risk. German native military forces initially engaged in dozens of punitive expeditions to apprehend and punish freedom fighters, at times with British assistance.

Bismarck’s successor in 1890, Leo von Caprivi, was willing to maintain the colonial burden of what already existed, but opposed new ventures. Others who followed, especially Bernhard von Bülow as foreign minister and chancellor, sanctioned the acquisition of the Pacific Ocean colonies and provided substantial treasury assistance to existing protectorates to employ administrators, commercial agents, surveyors, local “peacekeepers,” and tax collectors. Kaiser Wilhelm II understood and lamented his nation’s position as colonial followers rather than leaders. In an interview with Cecil Rhodes in March 1899 he stated the alleged dilemma clearly: “Germany has begun her colonial enterprise very late, and was, therefore, at the disadvantage of finding all the desirable places already occupied.”

According to historian William Roger Louis, in the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in “colonial aptitude,” but “whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states.” Anglo-German colonial issues in the decade before 1914 were minor, and both the British and German empires took conciliatory attitudes. Once war was declared in late July 1914 Britain and its allies promptly moved against the colonies, the public was informed that German colonies were a threat. The British position that Germany was a uniquely brutal and cruel colonial power originated during the war. By 1916, only in remote jungle regions in East Africa did the German forces hold out.

28.5.2: Germany and the Herero

The Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment that the German Empire undertook in German South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia) against the Herero and Nama people, considered one of the first genocides of the 20th century.

Learning Objective

Assess the argument for classifying the persecution against the Herero as a genocide

Key Points

• During the Scramble for Africa, South-West Africa was claimed by Germany in August 1884. 
• German colonists arriving in the following years occupied large areas of land, ignoring claims by the Herero and other natives. 
• There was continual resistance by the natives, most notably in 1903 when some of the Herero tribes rose in revolt and about 60 German settlers were killed.
• In October 1904, General Lothar von Trotha issued orders to kill every male Herero and drive the women and children into the desert; when the order was lifted at the end of 1904, prisoners were herded into concentration camps and given as slave labor to German businesses; many died of overwork and malnutrition.
• It took until 1908 to re-establish German authority over the territory; by that time tens of thousands of Africans (estimates range from 34,000 to 110,000) had been either killed or died of thirst while fleeing.
• In 1985, the United Nations’ Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century. In 2004, the German government recognized and apologized for the events

Key Terms

German South-West Africa

A colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915. It was 1.5 times the size of the mainland German Empire in Europe at the time. The colony had a population of around 2,600 Germans, numerous indigenous rebellions, and a widespread genocide of the indigenous peoples.

Eugen Fischer

A German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, and as rector of the Frederick William University of Berlin. His ideas informed the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and served to justify the Nazi Party’s attitudes of racial superiority. Adolf Hitler read his work while imprisoned in 1923 and used his eugenical notions to support the ideal of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto, Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

Herero

An ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. The majority reside in Namibia, with the remainder found in Botswana and Angola. During the German colonial empire, the German colonists committed genocide against these people.

Colonization and Conflict

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Herero migrated to what is today Namibia from the east and established themselves as herdsmen. In the beginning of the 19th century, the Nama from South Africa, who already possessed some firearms, entered the land and were followed by white merchants and German missionaries. At first, the Nama began displacing the Herero, leading to bitter warfare between the two groups that lasted the greater part of the 19th century. Later, the Nama and Herero entered a period of cultural exchange.

During the late 19th century, the first Europeans arrived to permanently settle the land. Primarily in Damaraland, German settlers acquired land from the Herero to establish farms. In 1883, merchant Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz entered into a contract with the native elders. The exchange later became the basis of German colonial rule. The territory became a German colony under the name of German South-West Africa.

Soon after, conflicts between the German colonists and the Herero herdsmen began. These were frequently disputes about access to land and water, but also the legal discrimination against the native population by the white immigrants.

Between 1893 and 1903, the Herero and Nama people’s land and cattle were progressively making their way into the hands of the German colonists. The Herero and Nama resisted expropriation over the years, but were disorganized and the Germans defeated them with ease. In 1903, the Herero people learned that they were to be placed in reservations, leaving more room for colonists to own land and prosper. In 1904, the Herero and Nama began a large rebellion that lasted until 1907, ending with the near destruction of the Herero people.

Genocide Against the Herero and Nama People

According to some historians, “The war against the Herero and Nama was the first in which German imperialism resorted to methods of genocide.” Roughly 80,000 Herero lived in German South-West Africa at the beginning of Germany’s colonial rule over the area, while after their revolt was defeated, they numbered approximately 15,000. In a period of four years, 1904-1907, approximately 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people perished.

The first phase of the genocide was characterized by widespread death from starvation and dehydration due to the prevention of the retreating Herero from leaving the Namib Desert by German forces. Once defeated, thousands of Herero and Nama were imprisoned in concentration camps, where the majority died of disease, abuse, and exhaustion.

During the Herero genocide Eugen Fischer, a German scientist, came to the concentration camps to conduct medical experiments on race, using children of Herero people and mulatto children of Herero women and German men as test subjects. Together with Theodor Mollison he also experimented upon Herero prisoners. Those experiments included sterilization and injection of smallpox, typhus, and tuberculosis. The numerous mixed offspring upset the German colonial administration, which was concerned with maintaining “racial purity.” Eugen Fischer studied 310 mixed-race children, calling them “bastards” of “lesser racial quality.” Fischer also subjected them to numerous racial tests such as head and body measurements and eye and hair examinations. In conclusion of his studies he advocated genocide of alleged “inferior races” stating that “whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion.” Fischer’s torment of the children was part of a wider history of abusing Africans for experiments, and echoed earlier actions by German anthropologists who stole skeletons and bodies from African graveyards and took them to Europe for research or sale.

In 1985, the United Nations’ Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century. In 2004, the German government recognized and apologized for the events, but ruled out financial compensation for the victims’ descendants. In July 2015, the German government and the speaker of the Bundestag officially called the events a “genocide” and “part of a race war.” However it has refused to consider reparations.

In recent years scholars have debated the “continuity thesis” that links German colonialist brutalities to the treatment of Jews, Poles, and Russians during World War II. Some historians argue that Germany’s role in Africa gave rise to an emphasis on racial superiority at home, which in turn was used by the Nazis. Other scholars, however, are skeptical and challenge the continuity thesis.

Surviving Herero

Photograph of emaciated survivors of the German genocide against Herero after an escape through the arid desert of Omaheke

A photo of emaciated survivors of the German genocide against Herero after an escape through the arid desert of Omaheke.

28.6: The Independent African States

28.6.1: Liberia

Liberia is a country in West Africa that was founded, established, colonized, and controlled by citizens of the United States and ex-Caribbean slaves as a colony for former African American slaves and their free black descendants.

Learning Objective

Describe what distinguishes Liberia from other African states

Key Points

• From around 1800, in the United States, people opposed to slavery were planning ways to achieve freedom for more slaves and ultimately abolish the institution. 
• At the same time, slaveholders in the South opposed having free blacks in their midst, as they believed the free people threatened the stability of their slave societies. 
• While mostly free across the North, former slaves and other free blacks suffered considerable discrimination, and some territories and states in the Northwest prohibited migration by free people of color.
• Some abolitionists and slaveholders discussed the idea of relocating freed African-American slaves to a colony in Africa, which led to the American Colonization Society (ACS), established in 1816 by Robert Finley of New Jersey.
• From 1821, thousands of free blacks who faced legislated restrictions in the U.S. moved to Liberia.
• In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared the nation an independent state. 
• By 1867, the ACS had assisted in the movement of more than 13,000 Americans to Liberia.
• Liberia retained its independence throughout the Scramble for Africa by European colonial powers during the late 19th century, but the country remained in the American sphere of influence.

Key Terms

Joseph Jenkins Roberts

The first (1848–1856) and seventh (1872–1876) President of Liberia. Born free in Norfolk, Virginia, he emigrated to Liberia in 1829 as a young man. He opened a trading store in Monrovia and later engaged in politics. When Liberia became independent in July 26, 1847, he was elected the first black American president for the Republic of Liberia, serving until 1856. In 1872 he was elected again to serve as Liberia’s seventh president.

American Colonization Society

A group established in 1816 by Robert Finley of New Jersey that supported the migration of free African Americans to the continent of Africa. It helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22 on the coast of West Africa as a place for free-born American blacks.

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. Liberia means “Land of the Free” in Latin. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its west, Guinea to its north, and Côte d’Ivoire to its east. English is the official language and over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous tribes who make up more than 95% of the population. The country’s capital and largest city is Monrovia.

The Republic of Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the United States. The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U.S. did not recognize Liberia’s independence until during the American Civil War on February 5, 1862. Between January 7, 1822, and the Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black Americans, who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans relocated to the settlement. The black American settlers carried their culture with them to Liberia. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born black American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected as Liberia’s first president after the people proclaimed independence.

Liberia is the only African republic to have self-proclaimed independence without gaining independence through revolt from any other nation, being Africa’s first and oldest modern republic. Liberia maintained and kept its independence during the European colonial era.

Settlement and Independence

Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta (“Pepper Coast”) but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders bartered commodities and goods with local people.

In the United States, there was a movement to resettle free-born blacks and freed slaves who faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement, and the denial of civil, religious, and social privileges in the United States. Most whites and later a small cadre of black nationalists believed that blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was founded in 1816 in Washington, DC for this purpose, by a group of prominent politicians and slaveholders. But its membership grew to include mostly people who supported abolition of slavery. Slaveholders wanted to get free people of color out of the South, where they were thought to threaten the stability of the slave societies. Some abolitionists collaborated on relocation of free blacks, as they were discouraged by racial discrimination against them in the North and believed they would never be accepted in the larger society. Most African-Americans, who were native-born by this time, wanted to work toward justice and equality in the United States rather than emigrate. Leading activists in the North strongly opposed the ACS, but some free blacks were ready to try a different environment.

In 1821, the ACA began sending African-American volunteers to the Pepper Coast to establish a colony for freed African-Americans. By 1867, the ACS had assisted in the migration of more than 13,000 African Americans to Liberia. These free African-Americans and their descendants married within their community and came to identify as Americo-Liberians. Many were of mixed race and educated in American culture; they did not identify with the indigenous natives of the tribes they encountered. They intermarried largely within the colonial community, developing an ethnic group that had a cultural tradition infused with American notions of political republicanism and Protestant Christianity.

Reflecting the system of racial segregation in the United States, the Americo-Liberians created a cultural and racial caste system with themselves at the top and indigenous Liberians at the bottom. They believed in a form of “racial equality” which meant that all residents of Liberia had the potential to become “civilized” through western-style education and conversion to Christianity.

On July 26, 1847, the settlers issued a Declaration of Independence and promulgated a constitution. Based on the political principles denoted in the United States Constitution, it established the independent Republic of Liberia.

The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians, who initially established political and economic dominance in the coastal areas that had been purchased by the ACS; they maintained relations with United States contacts in developing these areas and the resulting trade. Their passage of the 1865 Ports of Entry Act prohibited foreign commerce with the inland tribes, ostensibly to “encourage the growth of civilized values” before such trade was allowed.

Republic of Liberia

Charles D. B. King, 17th President of Liberia (1920-1930), with his entourage on the steps of the Peace Palace, The Hague (the Netherlands), 1927.

Charles D. B. King, 17th President of Liberia (1920-1930), with his entourage on the steps of the Peace Palace, The Hague (the Netherlands), 1927.

28.6.2: Ethiopia

Ethiopia achieved international prestige with its uniquely successful military resistance during the late 19th-century Scramble for Africa, becoming the only African country to defeat a European colonial power and retain its sovereignty.

Learning Objective

Explain how Ethiopia managed to maintain its independence

Key Points

• Ethiopia is one of the few African nations that remained independent during the European colonial period.
• Ethiopia’s modern history begins with the Emperor Tewodros II, who unified land from a decentralized kingdom ruled by various princes.
• During the Scramble for Africa, Italy set its sights on Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) after colonizing neighboring Eritrea and Somalia.
• After a dispute over a treaty that the Italians argued gave them rule over Ethiopia, the Italians invaded, facing an army much larger than they anticipated. This began the First Italo-Ethiopian War.
• Italian defeat came about after the Battle of Adwa, where the Ethiopian army dealt the heavily outnumbered Italians a decisive loss and forced their retreat back into Eritrea, a victory that became a rallying point for later African nationalists during their struggle for decolonization.
• This was not the first African victory over Western colonizers, but it was the first time such a military put a definitive stop to a colonizing nation’s efforts, with Ethiopia remaining independent until the eve of World War II, when Mussolini successful invaded and occupied Ethiopia.

Key Terms

Battle of Adwa

A battle fought in March 1896 between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy near the town of Adwa, Ethiopia, in Tigray. This climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War was a decisive defeat for Italy and secured Ethiopian sovereignty.

First Italo-Ethiopian War

A war fought between Italy and Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896. It originated from a disputed treaty that the Italians claimed turned the country into an Italian protectorate. Much to its surprise, the Italian army, invading Ethiopia from Italian Eritrea in 1893, faced a powerful united front. Italian defeat came about after the Battle of Adwa, where the Ethiopian army dealt the heavily outnumbered Italians a decisive loss and forced their retreat back into Eritrea.

Tewodros II

The Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death. His rule is often placed as the beginning of modern Ethiopia, ending the decentralized Zemene Mesafint (Era of the Princes).

Independent Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Formerly known as Abyssinia, it shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. Some of the oldest evidence for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia, widely considered the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East and places beyond. Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, followed by the Ethiopian Empire circa 1137. 

Ethiopia was reunified in 1855 under Tewodros II, beginning its modern history. The country slowly modernized under the leadership of Yohannes IV and defended itself from an Egyptian invasion in 1874. Emperor Yohannes fought and won wars against Egyptians, Italians, and Mehadists to keep his people free from foreign invaders. He was killed in action in 1889. 

Under Menelik II, Ethiopia defeated an Italian invasion in 1896 and came to be recognized as a legitimate state by European powers. More rapid modernization took place under Menelik II and Haile Selassie, but this did not deter another Italian invasion in 1935. The Italian army occupied parts of the country from October 1935-May 1940. A joint force of British and Ethiopian rebels drove the Italians out of the country in 1941, and Haile Selassie was returned to the throne.

Ethiopia derived prestige from its uniquely successful military resistance during the late 19th-century Scramble for Africa, becoming the only African country to defeat a European colonial power and retain its sovereignty. Subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopia’s flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations.

First Italo-Ethiopian War

As the 20th century approached, Africa had been carved up among the European powers at the Berlin Conference. The two independent exceptions were the Republic of Liberia on the west coast and Ethiopia in the eastern Horn of Africa region. The newly unified Kingdom of Italy was a relative newcomer to the imperialist scramble for Africa. Italy had two recently obtained African territories: Eritrea and Italian Somalia. Both were near Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa and both were impoverished. Italy sought to improve its position in Africa by conquering Ethiopia. Menelik II was the Ethiopian leader who pitted Italy against its European rivals while stockpiling weapons to defend Ethiopia against the Italians.

The First Italo-Ethiopian War was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896. It originated from a disputed treaty that the Italians claimed turned the country into an Italian protectorate. Much to their surprise, they found that Ethiopian ruler Menelik II, rather than being opposed by some of his traditional enemies, was supported by them. When the Italian army invaded Ethiopia from Italian Eritrea in 1893, they thus faced a more united front than they expected. In addition, Ethiopia was supported by Russia, an orthodox Christian nation like Ethiopia, with military advisers, army training, and the sale of weapons during the war. They were also supported diplomatically by the United Kingdom and France to prevent Italy from becoming a colonial competitor. Full-scale war broke out in 1895, with Italian troops having initial success until Ethiopian troops counterattacked Italian positions and besieged the Italian fort of Meqele, forcing its surrender. Italian defeat came about after the Battle of Adwa, where the Ethiopian army dealt the heavily outnumbered Italians a decisive loss and forced their retreat back into Eritrea. This climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War was a decisive defeat for Italy and secured Ethiopian sovereignty. As a direct result of the battle, Italy signed the Treaty of Addis Ababa, recognizing Ethiopia as an independent state.

This was not the first African victory over Western colonizers, but it was the first time such a military put a definitive stop to a colonizing nation’s efforts. According to one historian, “In an age of relentless European expansion, Ethiopia alone had successfully defended its independence.”

This defeat of a colonial power and the ensuing recognition of African sovereignty became rallying points for later African nationalists during their struggle for decolonization, as well as activists and leaders of the Pan-African movement. As the Afrocentric scholar Molefe Asante explains,

After the victory over Italy in 1896, Ethiopia acquired a special importance in the eyes of Africans as the only surviving African State. After Adowa, Ethiopia became emblematic of African valor and resistance, the bastion of prestige and hope to thousands of Africans who were experiencing the full shock of European conquest and were beginning to search for an answer to the myth of African inferiority.

Almost 40 years later, in October 1935 after the League of Nations’s weak response to the Abyssinia Crisis, the Italians launched a new military campaign endorsed by Benito Mussolini, the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. This time the Italians employed vastly superior military technology such as tanks and aircraft as well as chemical warfare, and the Ethiopian forces were defeated by May 1936. Following the war, Italy occupied Ethiopia for five years (1936–41), before eventually being driven out during World War II by British and Ethiopian forces.

The Battle of Adwa

Ethiopian forces, assisted by St George (top), win the Battle of Adwa. Painted 1965-75.

An Ethiopian painting Ethiopian troops defeating the Italian troops during the Battle of Adwa.

27.3: British India

27.3.1: The East India Trading Company

Learning Objective

Describe the East India Trading Company

Key Points

• After 1588, London merchants presented a
  petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean.
  Permission was granted to several ships, but in 1600 a group of merchants known as the Adventurers succeeded at gaining a Royal Charter under the
  name Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies.
  For 15 years, the charter awarded the newly formed company a
  monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of
  the Straits of Magellan.
• English traders frequently
  engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the
  Indian Ocean. The Company decided to gain a
  territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction from both
  Britain and the Mughal Empire. The requested diplomatic
  mission launched by James I in 1612 arranged for a commercial treaty that would give the
  Company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other
  areas. While Portuguese
  and Spanish influences in the region were soon eliminated, competition against the Dutch resulted in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of
  the 17th and 18th centuries.
• In
  an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the
  EIC (in a series of five acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and troops and form
  alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction
  over the acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a
  trading company into de
  facto an
  administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government. 
• In 1698, a new “parallel” EIC was established. The two companies wrestled
  with each other for some time but it quickly became evident that in practice, the original
  company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in
  1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. With the advent of the
  Industrial Revolution, the EIC became the single largest player on the British global market.
  With the
  backing of its own private army, it was able to
  assert its interests in new regions in India without further
  obstacles from other colonial powers.

• In the hundred years from
  the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC began to function more as an
  administrator and less as a trading concern. The proliferation of the Company’s
  power chiefly took two forms: the outright annexation of
  Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, or asserting power
  through treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company’s hegemony
  in return for limited internal autonomy. 

• In the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858, the
  British government nationalized the EIC. The Crown took over its Indian
  possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces. The
  EIC was officially dissolved in 1858 and the rebellion also led the British to
  reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in
  India. The country was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as
  the new British Raj.

Key Terms

British Raj

The rule of the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947.

Battle of Plassey

A decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on June 23, 1757. The battle consolidated the Company’s presence in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of India over the next hundred years.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

A rebellion in India against the rule of the British East India Company from May 1857 to July 1859. It began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company’s army in the cantonment of the town of Meerut and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions.
It led to the dissolution of the East India Company in 1858. India was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as the new British Raj.

East India Company

An English and later British joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but actually trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The company rose to account for half of the world’s trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea, and opium. It also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

Government of India Act 1858

An Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. c. 106) passed on August 2, 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company, which had been ruling British India under the auspices of Parliament, and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.

Founding of East India Company

Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean. Permission was granted and in 1591, three ships sailed from Torbay around the Cape of Good Hope to the Arabian Sea on one of the earliest English overseas Indian expeditions. In 1596, three more ships sailed east but were all lost at sea. In 1599, another group of merchants that eventually became known as the Adventurers stated their intention to sail to the East Indies
and applied to the Queen for support of the project. Although their first attempt had not been completely successful, they nonetheless sought the Queen’s unofficial approval to continue, bought ships for their venture, and increased their capital. 

The Adventurers convened again a year later. This time they succeeded and on December 31, 1600, the Queen granted a Royal Charter to “George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses” under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies. For 15 years the charter awarded the newly formed company a monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. Anybody who traded in breach of the charter without a license from the Company was liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which went to the Crown and the other half to the Company), as well as imprisonment at the “royal pleasure.”

Early Operation

Between 1601 and 1608, four voyages left Britain to establish trade with East Indies. Initially, the company struggled in the spice trade because of the competition from the already well-established Dutch East India Company. The East India Company (EIC or the Company) opened a factory in Bantam on the first voyage and imports of pepper from Java were an important part of the Company’s trade for 20 years. In the next two years, it established its first factory in south India in the town of Machilipatnam in Bengal. The high profits reported by the Company after landing in India initially prompted King James I to grant subsidiary licences to other trading companies in England. But in 1609, he renewed the charter given to the EIC for an indefinite period, including a clause that specified that the charter would cease if the trade turned unprofitable for three consecutive years.

English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The Company decided to explore the feasibility of gaining a territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction from both Britain and the Mughal Empire, and requested that the Crown launch a diplomatic mission. In 1612, James I instructed Sir Thomas Roe to visit the Mughal Emperor Nuruddin Salim Jahangir to arrange for a commercial treaty that would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the Company offered to provide the Emperor with goods and rarities from the European market. This mission was highly successful.

Expansion

The Company, which benefited from the imperial patronage, soon expanded its commercial trading operations, eclipsing the Portuguese Estado da Índia, which had established bases in Goa, Chittagong, and Bombay. Portugal later ceded this land to England as part of the dowry of Catherine de Braganza, kind Charles II’s wife. The EIC also launched a joint attack with the Dutch United East India Company on Portuguese and Spanish ships off the coast of China, which helped secure their ports in China. By 1647, the company had 23 factories and 90 employees in India. The major factories became the walled forts of Fort William in Bengal, Fort St George in Madras, and Bombay Castle. With reduced Portuguese and Spanish influence in the region, the EIC and Dutch East India Company entered a period of intense competition, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the EIC (in a series of five acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a trading company into a de facto administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government. 

Monopoly

The prosperity that the officers of the Company enjoyed allowed them to return to Britain and establish sprawling estates and businesses and obtain political power. The Company developed a lobby in the English parliament. Under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of the Company, who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a deregulating act was passed in 1694. This allowed any English firm to trade with India unless specifically prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that had been in force for almost 100 years. 

By an act passed in 1698, a new “parallel” East India Company (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies) was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time, both in England and in India, for a dominant share of the trade. It quickly became evident that in practice, the original company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. Under this arrangement, the merged company lent to the Treasury a sum of £3,200,000 in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. The amalgamated company became the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Britain surged ahead of its European rivals. Britain’s growing prosperity, demand, and production had a profound influence on overseas trade. The EIC became the single largest player on the British global market. Following the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) and the defeat of France, French ambitions on Indian territories were effectively laid to rest, thus eliminating a major source of economic competition for the EIC. The Company, with the backing of its own private well-disciplined and experienced army, was able to assert its interests in new regions in India without facing obstacles from other colonial powers, although it continued to experience resistance from local rulers. 

Changing Political Role

In the hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the EIC defeated the ruler of Bengal Nawab and his French allies and consolidated the Company’s presence in Bengal, to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC began to function more as an administrator and less as a trading concern.
The proliferation of the Company’s power chiefly took two forms. The first was the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, which collectively comprised British India. The second form of asserting power involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy. In the early 19th century, the territories of these princes accounted for two-thirds of India. When an Indian ruler who was able to secure his territory wanted to enter such an alliance, the Company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect rule that did not involve the economic costs of direct administration or the political costs of gaining the support of alien subjects. In return, the company pledged to defend its allies. 

This Company painting probably depicts William Fullerton of Rosemount, who joined the East India Company’s service in 1744, by Dip Chand, c. 1760-64.

Company style or Company painting is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East India Company or other foreign Companies in the 18th and 19th centuries. The style blended traditional elements from Rajput and Mughal painting with a more Western treatment of perspective, volume, and recession.

In the early 19th century, the Indian question of geopolitical dominance and empire holding remained with the East India Company. The Company’s independent armies, with some locally raised irregular forces, expanded to a total of 280,000 men by 1857. First recruited from mercenaries and low-caste volunteers, the Bengal Army eventually became composed largely of high-caste Hindus and landowning Muslims. Within the army, British officers always outranked Indians, no matter how long their service. Indian officers received no training in administration or leadership so they would remain dependent on the British officers. During the wars against the French and their allies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the EIC’s armies were used to seize the colonial possessions of other European nations, including the islands of Réunion and Mauritius.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857, which eventually led to the dissolution of the EIC,  had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes. A direct trigger wad the grievances of the sepoys, a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army, against the EIC administration, caused mainly by the ethnic gulf between the European officers and their Indian troops. The spark that led directly to a mutiny in several sepoy companies was the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle. In 1857, British officers insisted that the new cartridges be used by both Muslim and Hindu soldiers, but the cartridges were made from cow and pig fat. Loading the Enfield required tearing open the greased cartridge with one’s teeth. This insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices. Underlying grievances over British taxation and recent land annexations by the EIC were ignited by the sepoy mutineers and within weeks, dozens of units of the Indian army joined peasant armies in widespread rebellion. The old Muslim and Hindu aristocracies, who were seeing their power steadily eroded by the EIC, also rebelled against the British rule.

In the aftermath of the Rebellion, under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858, the British government nationalized the EIC. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces. The EIC was officially dissolved in 1858 and the rebellion led the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India. The country was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as the new British Raj.

Capture of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and his sons by William Hodson in 1857, by Robert Montgomery Martin, c. 1860.

The East India Company had a long lasting impact on the Indian Subcontinent. Although dissolved following the Rebellion of 1857, it stimulated the growth of the British Empire. Its armies were to become the armies of British India after 1857, and it played a key role in introducing English as an official language in India.

27.3.2: The British Raj

Learning Objective

Explain why the British Raj was established in India

Key Points

• The
  control of rich Bengal gained in the aftermath of the Battle of Plassey brought
  India into the public spotlight in Britain, and Parliament established regulations to manage the affairs of the
  East India Company. Although some wanted the Company’s territories to be taken over by the
  British state, the eventual compromise asserted that the Company could act as a
  sovereign power on behalf of the Crown while subject to oversight and regulation by the British government and
  parliament.

• Under
  the terms of The Charter Act of 1833, the British Parliament revoked the
  Company’s trade license, which made the Company a part of British
  governance, but administration of British India remained the responsibility
  Company officers. The Act also charged the
  Governor-General-in-Council (to whose title was now added “of India”)
  with the supervision of civil and military administration of India as well as the exclusive power of legislation. 
• After the
  Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British government took control of the Company. All power
  was transferred from the EIC to the British Crown, which began to administer
  most of India as a number of provinces. The Crown controlled the Company’s
  lands directly and had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India. What
  followed became known as the British Raj: the rule of the British
  Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947.
• The Government of India Act 1858 made changes in
  the governance of India at three levels: in the imperial government in London,
  in the central government in Calcutta, and in the provincial governments in the
  presidencies (and later in the provinces).
  In
  London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a
  fifteen-member Council of India. In
  Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India, commonly called the Viceroy.
• If the Government of India needed to enact new
  laws, it followed the decisions of a Legislative Council, half of which consisted of British officials with voting power and half
  comprised Indians and domiciled Britons in India who served only in an advisory capacity. All laws enacted by Legislative
  Councils in India required the final assent of the Secretary of State in
  London. This prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to
  describe the Government of India as “a despotism controlled from
  home.” 
• A
  princely state was a semi-sovereign
  principality during the British Raj that was not directly governed by the
  British, but rather by a local ruler. The princely states varied greatly in status, size, and wealth.
  Their courts
  existed under the authority of the respective rulers. The British controlled the external affairs of the
  princely states absolutely. As the states were not British possessions,
  however, they retained control over their own internal affairs, subject to a
  degree of British influence which in many states was substantial.

Key Terms

princely state

A semi-sovereign principality on the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by a local ruler, subject to a form of indirect rule on some matters.

Charter Act of 1833

An 1833 act that intended to provide for an extension of the royal charter granted to the East India Company. It extended the charter by 20 years, redesignated the Governor-General of Bengal as the Governor-General of India, and deprived the Governors of Bombay and Madras of their legislative powers. The Governor-General and his executive council were given exclusive legislative powers for the whole of British India. The act ended the activities of the British East India Company as a commercial body and it became a purely administrative body.

East India Company

An English and later British
joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies. It ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The
company rose to account for half of the world’s trade, particularly in basic
commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea, and
opium. It also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

A rebellion in India against the
rule of the British East India Company from May 1857 to July
1859. It began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company’s
army in the cantonment of the town of Meerut and soon escalated into other
mutinies and civilian rebellions. It led to the dissolution of the East India
Company in 1858. India was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as
the new British Raj.

Government of India Act 1858

An Act of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. c. 106) passed on August 2, 1858.
Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company,
which had been ruling British India under the auspices of
Parliament) and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.

British Raj

The rule of the British
Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947.

East India Company vs. British Government

Until the 1757 Battle of Plassey, the East India Company (EIC or the Company) territories in India, which consisted largely of the presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, were governed by the mostly autonomous—and sporadically unmanageable—town councils, all composed of merchants. The councils barely had enough powers for the effective management of their local affairs and the ensuing lack of oversight of the overall Company operations in India led to some grave abuses by Company officers and their allies. The control of rich Bengal gained in the aftermath of the Battle of Plassey brought India into the public spotlight in Britain and the Company’s money management practices were questioned. 

By 1772, the Company needed British government loans to stay afloat and there was fear in London that the Company’s corrupt practices could soon seep into British business and public life. Consequently, the Parliament established regulations at aimed to manage the affairs of the EIC. Although some wanted the Company’s territories to be taken over by the British state, the eventual compromise asserted that the Company could act as a sovereign power on behalf of the Crown and while subject to oversight and regulation by the British government and parliament. From 1784, the British government had the final word on all major appointments in India.  

With increased British power in India, supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and Parliament increased as well. By the 1820s, British nationals could transact business or engage in missionary work under the protection of the Crown in the three presidencies. Finally, under the terms of The Charter Act of 1833, the British Parliament revoked the Company’s trade license altogether. This made the Company a part of British governance, but administration of British India remained the responsibility of Company officers. The Charter Act of 1833 also charged the Governor-General-in-Council (to whose title was now added “of India”) with the supervision of civil and military administration of the totality of India and the exclusive power of legislation. 

The proliferation of the
Company’s power chiefly took two forms. The first was the outright
annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying
regions that came to comprise British India. The second involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the
Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy. In the early 19th
century, the territories of these princes accounted for two-thirds of India.
When an Indian ruler who was able to secure his territory wanted to enter
such an alliance, the Company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect
rule that did not involve the economic costs of direct administration or the
political costs of gaining the support of alien subjects. In return, the company
pledged to defend its allies. 

British Raj: “Despotism Controlled from Home”

The Indian Rebellion of 1857, a large-scale rebellion by soldiers employed by the EIC in northern and central India against the Company’s rule, was brutally suppressed. The British government took control of the Company and all power was transferred from the EIC to the British Crown, which began to administer most of India as a number of provinces. The Crown controlled the Company’s lands directly and had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India, which consisted of the princely states ruled by local royal families. What followed became known as the British Raj, the rule of the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947.

A 1909 map of the British Indian Empire,
Edinburgh Geographical Institute, J. G. Bartholomew and Sons, Oxford University Press, 1909.

The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, except for small holdings by other European nations such as Goa and Pondicherry. This area is very diverse, containing the Himalayan mountains, fertile floodplains, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, a long coastline, tropical dry forests, arid uplands, and the Thar desert.

The Government of India Act 1858 made changes in the governance of India at three levels: in the imperial government in London, in the central government in Calcutta, and in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces). In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a 15-member Council of India, whose members were required, to have spent at least ten years in India no more than 10 years ago. The Act envisaged a system of “double government,” in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India. However, the Secretary of State also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions and, in reality, the Council’s expertise was sometimes outdated.

In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown’s representative to the nominally sovereign princely states. He was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of State in London and through him to Parliament. The Governor-General in the capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council. However, in the years of the post-rebellion reconstruction, Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead, so he requested the “portfolio system” of an Executive Council, in which the business of each government department (the portfolio) was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single council member. Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, but important decisions required the consent of the Governor-General and in the absence of such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act 1861.

If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative Council—an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to a two-year term—with half the members consisting of British officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote and the other half comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity. All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London. This prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as “a despotism controlled from home.” Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to calls for more consultation with Indians, those appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their British loyalty. 

Princely States

A princely state, also called native state, refers to a semi-sovereign principality during the British Raj that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by a local ruler, subject to a form of indirect rule on some matters. The princely states varied greatly in status, size, and wealth.
The British Crown’s suzerainty over 175 princely states, generally the largest and most important, was exercised in the name of the British Crown by the central government of British India under the Viceroy. The remaining approximately 500 states were influenced by agents answerable to the provincial governments of British India under a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner. A clear distinction between “dominion” and “suzerainty” was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the legislation enacted by the British Parliament and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local. In contrast, the courts of the princely states existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.
By treaty, the British controlled the external affairs of the princely states absolutely. As the states were not British possessions, however, they retained control over their own internal affairs, subject to a degree of British influence which in many states was substantial.

Viceroy Lord Canning meets Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Jammu & Kashmir, March 9, 1860 by William Simpson, 1867.  

Suzerainty over 175 princely states, some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name of the British Crown) by the central government of British India under the Viceroy. The remaining approximately 500 states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner (as the case might have been).

By the beginning of the 20th century, relations between the British and the four largest states – Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Kashmir, and Baroda – were directly under the control of the Governor-General of India in the person of a British Resident. Two agencies, for Rajputana and Central India, oversaw 20 and 148 princely states respectively. The remaining princely states had their own British political officers, or agents, who answered to the administrators of India’s provinces. 

27.3.3: The “Civilising Mission”

Learning Objective

Define the “civilising mission”

Key Points

• The mission civilisatrice, a
  French term that translates literally into English as civilising
  mission, is a rationale for intervention or colonization, purporting to
  contribute to the spread of civilization and used mostly in relation to the
  colonization and Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and 20th
  centuries. Its advocates postulated a duty of Europeans
  to help “backwards” peoples “civilize.” 
• In
  India, the British “civilising mission” focused largely on
  educational reforms designed to speed up modernization and reduce administrative charges. Colonial
  authorities fervently debated the question of the best policy. The orientalists believed that education should
  happen in Indian languages while the utilitarians (also called anglicists)
  strongly believed that traditional India had nothing to teach regarding modern
  skills and the best education would happen in English.
• One
  of the most influential reformers was Thomas Babington Macaulay, who in 1835 authored “Minute on Indian
  Education.” In it, he urged the Governor-General to reform
  secondary education on utilitarian lines to deliver “useful
  learning,” which to Macaulay was synonymous with Western culture. He argued that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the
  speakers of the Indian vernacular languages and existing Sanskrit and Persian
  texts were of little use for “useful learning.” 
• Macaulay’s
  text largely coincided with Governor-General William Bentinck’s views and
  Bentinck’s English Education Act 1835 closely matched Macaulay’s
  recommendations. Under Macaulay, thousands of elementary and secondary schools
  were opened, typically with all-male student bodies. However, Macaulay’s
  views enjoyed little support in London and subsequent Governors-General
  took a more conciliatory approach to existing Indian education.
• Missionaries
  opened their own schools that taught Christianity and the 3-Rs (reading,
  writing, and arithmetic). Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were
  established in 1857. The government opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911. All these benefits, however, went
  to the Indian elites and middle classes, who were expected to serve as loyal
  supporters of the British rule in India. 
• The
  “civilising mission” rhetoric continued, but soon became an alibi
  for British misrule and racism without the pretense that Indian
  progress was ever a goal. Those who advocated actual reforms became less influential. The British assumed Indians had to be
  ruled by heavy hand, with democratic opportunities postponed indefinitely.

Key Terms

civilising mission

A rationale for intervention or colonization purporting to contribute to the spread of civilization, used mostly in relation to the colonization and Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Whig history

An approach to historiography that presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, historians representing this approach emphasize the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms, and scientific progress. The term is often applied generally (and pejoratively) to histories that present the past as the inexorable march of progress towards enlightenment.

Intellectual Origins of “Civilising Mission”

The mission civilisatrice, a French term which translates literally into English as civilising mission, is a rationale for intervention or colonization, purporting to contribute to the spread of civilization and used mostly in relation to the colonization and Westernization of indigenous peoples in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was influential in the French colonies of Algeria, French West Africa, and Indochina and in the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Guinea, Mozambique, and Timor. The rationale was also used by the British in their Asian and African colonies. The European colonial powers argued it was their duty to bring Western civilization to what they perceived as backward people. In addition to governing colonies, the Europeans also attempted to Westernize them in accordance with a colonial ideology known as “assimilation.” They aimed to influence indigenous elites who would loyally support imperial rule. 

The intellectual origins of the mission civilisatrice trace back to the European thinkers, who discussed the idea of social change by using a development metaphor. In the 18th century, many saw history as a linear unending inevitable process of social evolutionism with the European nations running ahead. Racism underlined the arguments of two dominant lines of thought that emerged from this assumption. Some Europeans saw the “backward” nations as intrinsically incapable of reaching what Europeans saw as a more advanced level of social development. Others did not deny non-European societies these capabilities but postulated a duty to help those peoples “civilize.” 

The Role of Education

In India, the British “civilising mission” focused largely on educational reforms. Education in English became a high priority with the goal to speed up modernization and reduce administrative charges. Colonial authorities fervently debated the question of the best policy, falling roughly in one of the two main camps. The orientalists believed that education should happen in Indian languages and favored classical or court languages like Sanskrit or Persian. Conversely, the utilitarians (also called anglicists) strongly believed that traditional India had nothing to teach regarding modern skills and the best education would happen in English.

One of the most influential reformers, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), belonged to the latter group. Macaulay was a historian and politician who represented the tradition of Whig history, according to which the past is an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians emphasize the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms, and scientific progress. 

Macauley went to India in 1834 and served on the Supreme Council of India until 1838. At the time, he authored his famous “Minute on Indian Education” (1835), in which he urged the Governor-General to reform secondary education on utilitarian lines to deliver “useful learning,” which to Macaulay was synonymous with Western culture. Macaulay argued that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the speakers of the Indian vernacular languages and existing Sanskrit and Persian texts were of little use for “useful learning.” Although he did not know Sanskrit or Arabic, he claimed that all Western experts could not “deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.” Hence, he advocated that from the sixth year of schooling, students should be taught a European curriculum in English. This aimed to create a class of anglicized Indians to serve as cultural intermediaries between the British and the Indians. Macualay assumed that the creation of such a class was necessary before any reform of vernacular education. 

Macaulay’s text largely coincided with Governor-General William Bentinck’s views and Bentinck’s English Education Act 1835 closely matched Macaulay’s recommendations. Under Macaulay, thousands of elementary and secondary schools opened, typically with all-male student bodies. However, Macaulay’s views enjoyed little support in London and subsequent Governors-General took a more conciliatory approach to existing Indian education.

Missionaries opened their own schools that taught Christianity and the 3-Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic). Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were established in 1857, just before the Rebellion. By 1890, some 60,000 Indians had matriculated, chiefly in the liberal arts or law. About a third entered public administration and another third became lawyers. The result was a very well-educated professional state bureaucracy. By 1887, of 21,000 mid-level civil service appointments, 45% were held by Hindus, 7% by Muslims, 19% by Eurasians (European father and Indian mother), and 29% by Europeans. Of the 1,000 top-level positions, almost all were held by Britons, typically with Oxbridge degrees. The government, often working with local philanthropists, opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911 and enrolled 36,000 students (over 90% men). By 1939, the number of institutions had doubled and enrollment reached 145,000. The curriculum followed classical British standards et by Oxford and Cambridge and stressed English literature and European history. All these benefits of education, however, went to the Indian elites and middle classes, who were expected to serve as loyal supporters of the British rule in India. Historians of Indian education have generally linked the idea of educational reform under the British rule to colonial dominance and control.

The “civilising mission” rhetoric continued, but soon became an alibi for British misrule and racism, this time without even pretending that Indian progress was ever a goal. Those who advocated actual reforms became less influential. Instead, the British assumed Indians had to be ruled by heavy hand with democratic opportunities postponed indefinitely, although some English historians argued that the so-called liberal imperialists truly believed that the British rule would bring the benefits of “ordered liberty” and Britain could fulfill its moral duty. Much of the debate on the role of Britain in India took place in Britain, where the imperialists worked hard to convince the general population that the “civilising mission” was well under-way. This campaign served to strengthen imperial support at home and thus bolster the moral authority of the elites who ran the Empire.

University of Bombay

A photo of University of Mumbai’s Fort Campus taken in the 1870s. Rajabai Clock Tower, seen here shrouded in scaffolding, was completed in 1878.

27.3.4: The Great Uprising of 1857

Learning Objective

Analyze the reasons for the Great Uprising of 1857

Key Points

• The
  Indian Rebellion of 1857 resulted
  from an accumulation of factors over time rather than any single event. In the military,
  sepoys
  had a number of grievances, including losing their perquisites as
  landed gentry and the anticipation of increased land-revenue payments
  that the 1856 annexation of Oudh might bring about; being convinced that the Company was masterminding mass conversions of
  Hindus and Muslims to Christianity; changes in the terms of
  professional service; and the issue of
  promotions based on seniority. 
• The
  final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle.
  To load the rifle,
  sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder, but the grease used on
  these cartridges was rumored to include tallow derived from beef, offensive to Hindus, and pork, offensive to Muslims. While the Company was quick to reverse the effects of the
  policy to quell the unrest, this convinced many sepoys that the rumors were true and their fears
  were justified. 
• Civilians developed their own grievances
  against the Company. The nobility felt it interfered with a traditional
  system of inheritance through the Doctrine of Lapse. Rural landlords
  lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land
  reforms in the wake of annexation of Oudh. Some historians have suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas resulted in many
  landowning families losing their land or going into great debt.
• The
  rebellion began as a mutiny of sepoys on May 10, 1857, in the cantonment of the
  town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions,
  largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major
  hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, northern
  Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. In general, the rebels were disorganized, had
  differing goals, were poorly equipped, led, and trained, and had no outside
  support or funding. 
• The rebellion and its aftermath resulted in the
  deaths of more than 100,000 Indians. The alleged killings of women and children
  by the rebels left many British soldiers
  seeking revenge. Most of the British press and British public,
  outraged by the stories of alleged rape and the killings of civilians and
  wounded British soldiers, did not advocate clemency of any kind. 
• The
  rebellion saw the end of the East India Company’s rule in India. By
  the Government of India Act 1858, the company was formally dissolved and its
  ruling powers over India were transferred to the British Crown. The rebellion also transformed both the native and
  European armies of British India.

Key Terms

Government of India Act 1858

An Act of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. c. 106) passed on August 2, 1858.
Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company,
which had been ruling British India under the auspices of
Parliament and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.

East India Company

An English and later British
joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The
company rose to account for half of the world’s trade, particularly in basic
commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpeter, tea, and
opium. It also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

A rebellion in India against the
rule of the British East India Company from May 1857 to July
1859. It began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company’s
army in the cantonment of the town of Meerut and soon escalated into other
mutinies and civilian rebellions. It led to the dissolution of the East India
Company in 1858. India was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as
the new British Raj.

sepoy

A term used in the forces of the British East India Company that initially referred to Hindu or Muslim soldiers without regular uniform or discipline. It later referred to all native soldiers in the service of the European powers in India.

Causes of 1857 Rebellion

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 (known also as the Great Uprising of 1857) resulted from an accumulation of factors over time rather than from any single event.

In 1772, Warren Hastings was appointed India’s first Governor-General, and one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the East India Company’s army. New sepoys (local soldiers, usually of Hindu or Muslim background) were recruited and to forestall any social friction, the Company took action to adapt its military practices to the requirements of their religious rituals. Over time, however, sepoys developed a number of grievances. After the annexation of Oudh (Awadh) by the EIC in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites as landed gentry and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might bring about. Furthermore, by 1857, some Indian soldiers, interpreting the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were convinced that the Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Finally, changes in the terms of professional service also created resentment. As the extent of the EIC’s jurisdiction expanded with victories in wars or annexation, the soldiers were now expected not only to serve in less familiar regions but also without the “foreign service” remuneration that had previously been their due. Moreover, the new recruits of the Bengal Army, who until 1856 had been exempted from overseas service in observance of certain caste rituals, were now required a commitment for general service. There were also grievances over the issue of promotions based on seniority. This as well as the increasing number of European officers in the battalions made promotion slow, and many Indian officers did not reach commissioned rank until they were too old to be effective.

The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle. These used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridges open to release the powder. The grease used was rumored to include tallow derived from beef, offensive to Hindus, and pork, offensive to Muslims. There were rumors that the British sought to destroy the religions of the Indian people and forcing the native soldiers to break their sacred code certainly increased this concern. The Company was quick to reverse the effects of the policy in hopes that the unrest would be quelled. Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from depots were to be free from grease and that sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever mixture “they may prefer.” A modification was also made to the drill for loading so that the cartridge was torn with the hands and not bitten. This, however, convinced many sepoys that the rumors were true and that their fears were justified. 

Civilians developed their own grievances against the Company. The nobility, many of whom lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse which refused to recognize the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the Company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. In the areas of central India where such loss of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the Company, even in areas where the sepoys had rebelled. Rural landlords called taluqdars lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. Some historians have also suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt (money lenders, in addition to the Company, were particular objects of the rebels’ animosity). Eventually, the civilian rebellion was highly uneven in its geographic distribution and historians still attempt to explain why some areas rebelled while others remained calm.

“The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut,” Illustrated London News, 1857.

At Meerut, a large military cantonment, 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers were stationed along with 12 British-manned guns. The station held one of the largest concentrations of British troops in India and this was later cited as evidence that the original rising was a spontaneous outbreak rather than a pre-planned plot.

Rebellion of 1857

The rebellion began as a mutiny of sepoys on May 10, 1857, in the cantonment of the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions, largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to EIC’s power in that region. Other regions of Company-controlled India, the Bombay Presidency and the Madras Presidency, remained largely calm. The large princely states of Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana, did not join the rebellion. In some regions such as Oudh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against European presence. Some rebel leaders, such as Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, became folk heroes in the nationalist movement in India half a century later. In the Bengal Presidency, the revolt was entirely centered on Bihar, which experienced multiple disturbances in the Shahabad region where the revolt was led by Kunwar Singh. In Punjab, the Sikh princes backed the Company by providing soldiers and support. In general, the rebels were disorganized, had differing goals, were poorly equipped, led, and trained, and had no outside support or funding. The rebellion was contained only with the Indian defeat in Gwalior on June 18, 1858, during which Rani of Jhansi was killed. By 1859, rebel leaders Bakht Khan and Nana Sahib had either been slain or had fled.

Aftermath

The rebellion and its aftermath resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Indians. The alleged killings of women and children by the rebels as well as wounded British soldiers left many British soldiers seeking revenge. The mutineers were hung or blown from cannon,  an old Mughal punishment where sentenced rebels were tied over the mouths of cannons and blown to pieces when the cannons were fired. Most of the British press, outraged by the stories of alleged rape and the killings of civilians and wounded British soldiers, did not advocate clemency of any kind. When Governor-General Canning ordered moderation in dealing with native sensibilities, he earned the scornful sobriquet “Clemency Canning” from the press and later parts of the British public.

Sepoy execution by blowing from a cannon

Incidents of rape allegedly committed by Indian rebels against European women and girls appalled the British public. These atrocities were often used to justify the British reaction to the rebellion. A series of exhaustive investigations were carried out by British police and intelligence officials into reports that British women prisoners had been “dishonored” at the Bibighar and elsewhere. The consensus was that there was no convincing evidence of such crimes having been committed, although numbers of European women and children had been killed outright.

The rebellion saw the end of the East India Company’s rule in India. In August, by the Government of India Act 1858, the company was formally dissolved and its ruling powers over India were transferred to the British Crown. A new British government department, the India Office, was created to handle the governance of India, and its head, the Secretary of State for India, was entrusted with formulating Indian policy. The Governor-General of India gained a new title, Viceroy of India, and implemented the policies devised by the India Office. On a political level, the British assumed that the previous lack of consultation between rulers and ruled was a significant factor in contributing to the uprising. In consequence, Indians were drawn into government at a local level, although on a limited scale. Nonetheless, a new white-collar Indian elite comprised of a professional middle class was starting to arise, in no way bound by the values of the past. 

The Bengal army dominated the Indian army before 1857 and a direct result after the rebellion was the scaling back of the size of the Bengali contingent. The Brahmin presence in the Bengal Army was reduced because of their perceived primary role as mutineers. The rebellion transformed both the native and European armies of British India. The old Bengal Army almost completely vanished from the order of battle. These troops were replaced by new units recruited from castes hitherto underutilized by the British and from the minority so-called “martial races,” such as the Sikhs and the Gurkhas. There were also fewer European officers, but they associated themselves far more closely with their soldiers. More responsibility was given to the Indian officers.

27.3.5: The Economy in British India

Learning Objective

Describe the economy of British India and how it fit into Britain’s mercantilism

Key Points

• Both the direct administration of India by
  the British Crown and the technological change ushered in by the Industrial
  Revolution closely intertwined the economies of India and
  Great Britain. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly
  built in India and telegraph links established so that raw materials, most
  notably cotton, from India’s hinterland could be transported more efficiently
  to ports for subsequent export to England. Finished goods from
  England were transported back just as efficiently for sale in the burgeoning
  Indian markets. 
• Despite
  Britain’s position as the global leader of industrial development, India’s
  industrialization was limited beyond textiles. Historians
  have pointed to two causes: relatively low labor costs that discouraged investment in new labor-saving technologies and
  British control of trade and exports of cheap
  Manchester cotton. Entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata became the symbol of local industrial success, establishing a company that remains an influential global brand today. 
• A
  plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832. A few short
  lines were built in the 1830s, but they did not interconnect. In 1844,
  Governor-General Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail
  system in India. The colonial government encouraged new railway companies
  backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and
  guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of
  operation. Encouraged
  by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail
  companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in
  India. 
• The
  railways were privately owned and operated and run by British
  administrators, engineers, and skilled craftsmen. At
  first, only the unskilled workers were Indians. Like hiring practices, building and maintaining the railways were
  designed to benefit mostly British companies.
  India thus provides an example of the British Empire
  pouring its money and expertise into a well-built system designed for
  military purposes with the hope that it would
  stimulate industry.
• The Indian economy grew about 1% per year
  from 1880 to 1920 and the population also grew at 1%. The result was, on
  average, no long-term change in income levels. Agriculture was still dominant,
  with most peasants at the subsistence level. Extensive irrigation systems were
  built, providing an impetus for growing cash crops for export and for raw
  materials for Indian industry, especially jute, cotton, sugarcane, coffee, and
  tea.
• Historians
  continue to debate whether the long-term impact of British rule accelerated or hindered the economic development of India. Some argue that
  the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of
  “plunder.” Others note the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past. Many scholars in India and the West agree today that the British power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian
  elites and that the British rule did not change the highly divisive caste-based hierarchy of the Indian society.

Key Terms

East India Company

An English and later British
joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but
trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The
company rose to account for half of the world’s trade, particularly in basic
commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpeter, tea, and
opium. It also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

A rebellion in India against the
rule of the British East India Company from May 1857 to July
1859. It began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company’s
army in the cantonment of the town of Meerut and soon escalated into other
mutinies and civilian rebellions. It led to the dissolution of the East India
Company in 1858. India was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as
the new British Raj.

Limited Industrialization

In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British Crown and the technological change ushered in by the Industrial Revolution closely intertwined the economies of India and Great Britain. Many of the major changes in transport and communications typically associated with Crown Rule of India began before the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links established so that raw materials, most notably cotton, from India’s hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports for subsequent export to England. Finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets. Imports of British cotton covered 55% of the Indian market by 1875. 

Despite Britain’s position as the global leader of industrial development, India’s industrialization was limited, prompting historians to examine why. In the 17th century, India was a relatively urbanized and commercialized country with a buoyant export trade, devoted largely to cotton textiles but also including silk, spices, and rice. India was the world’s main producer of cotton textiles and had a substantial export trade to Britain and many other European countries via the East India Company. Yet while the British cotton industry underwent technological revolution in the late 18th century, the Indian industry stagnated and industrialization in India was delayed until the 20th century. 

Historians have suggested that occurred because India was still a largely agricultural nation with low wages. In Britain, wages were relatively high, so cotton producers had the incentive to invent and purchase expensive new labor-saving technologies. In India, by contrast, wages were low, so producers preferred to increase output by hiring more workers rather than investing in technology. British control of trade and exports of cheap Manchester cotton are cited as other significant factors. 

Despite the unrivaled quality of Indian cotton, universally recognized as late as the end of the 18th century, Indian textile exports declined significantly over the 19th century. High tariffs against Indian textile workshops and British restrictions on Indian cotton imports quickly transformed India from the source of textiles to a source of raw cotton.
Industrial production as it developed in European factories was unknown until the 1850s when the first cotton mills opened in Bombay, posing a challenge to the cottage-based home production system based on family labor.

The entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata (1839–1904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian mills produced cheap coarse yarn (and later cloth) using local short-staple cotton and cheap machinery imported from Britain, Tata imported expensive longer-stapled cotton from Egypt and bought more complex ring-spindle machinery from the United States to spin finer yarn that could compete with imports from Britain. In the 1890s, Tata launched plans to expand into heavy industry using Indian funding. The Raj did not provide capital, but aware of Britain’s declining position against the U.S. and Germany in the steel industry, it wanted steel mills in India and promised to purchase any surplus steel Tata could not otherwise sell. The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859–1932), opened its plant in 1908. It became the leading iron and steel producer in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945. TISCO became India’s proud symbol of technical skill, managerial competence, entrepreneurial flair, and high pay for industrial workers.

Railway Industry 

A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832. A few short lines were built in the 1830s, but they did not interconnect. In 1844, Governor-General Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India. The colonial government encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier.

Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread across regions.

British investors and engineers built a modern railway system by the late 19th century. It was the fourth largest in the world and was renowned for quality of construction and service. The government was supportive, realizing its value for military use in case of another rebellion as well as its value for economic growth. All the funding and management came from private British companies. The railways at first were privately owned and operated and run by British administrators, engineers, and skilled craftsmen. 

At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians. Historians note that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel such as locomotive engineers. Like hiring practices, building and maintaining the railways were designed to benefit mostly British companies. The government required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms. The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. 

“The most magnificent railway station in the world,” Victoria Terminus, Bombay, completed in 1888

By 1875, about £95 million (equal to £117 billion in 2012) was invested by British companies in Indian-guaranteed railways. It later transpired that there was heavy corruption in these investments, on the part of both members of the British Colonial Government in India and companies who supplied machinery and steel in Britain. This resulted in railway lines and equipment costing nearly double what they should have.

India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a well-built system designed for military purposes after the Rebellion of 1857 with the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. However, it did capture the imagination of the Indians, who saw their railways as the symbol of an industrial modernity—but one that was not realized until after Independence.

Economic Impact

The Indian economy grew at about 1% per year from 1880 to 1920 and the population also grew at 1%. The result was, on average, no long-term change in income levels. Agriculture was still dominant, with most peasants at the subsistence level. Extensive irrigation systems were built, providing an impetus for growing cash crops for export and for raw materials for Indian industry, especially jute, cotton, sugarcane, coffee, and tea. Agricultural income imparted the strongest effect on GDP. 

Historians continue to debate whether the long-term impact of British rule was to accelerate or hinder the economic development of India. In 1780, conservative British politician Edmund Burke raised the issue of India’s position. He vehemently attacked the EIC, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, arguing that the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of plunder and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of the Mughal Empire. Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and of imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible Bengal famine of 1770, which killed a third of the city’s people.

P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. He argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past, which largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators, keeping  the old Mughal rates of taxation. Many historians agree that the EIC inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators. Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation (supported by many scholars in India and the West) that the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still highly controversial among many historians. However, historians agree that the British rule did not change the divisive caste-based hierarchy of the Indian society and thus ordinary Indians remained excluded from the benefits of economic growth. 

The railway network in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world

In 1907, almost all the rail companies were taken over by the government. The following year, the first electric locomotive made its appearance. With the arrival of World War I, the railways were used to meet the needs of the British outside India. With the end of the war, the railways were in a state of disrepair and collapse.

27.3.6: The Indian National Congress

Learning Objective

List the key goals of the Indian National Congress and the reasons for its formation

Key Points

• The Indian National
  Congress was founded in 1885 by Indian and British
  members of the Theosophical Society to obtain a greater
  share in government for educated Indians and create a platform for civic and
  political dialogue between educated Indians and the British Raj.

  Within the next few years,
  the organization decided to advocate in
  favor of the independence movement. After internal conflicts over how to win independence, the moderate faction advocating gradual reforms won leadership over the radical faction that called for an open rebellion.

• Mahatma Gandhi returned
  from South Africa in 1915. With the help of the moderate group led by Ghokhale,
  Gandhi became president of the Congress and in the years following World
  War I, he remained its
  unofficial spiritual leader and icon. Gandhi’s ideas and
  strategies of non-violent civil disobedience initially appeared
  impractical to some Indians and congressmen. In the end, however, Gandhi’s
  vision brought millions of ordinary Indians into the movement, transforming it
  from an elitist struggle to a national one. 
• In
  1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress declared complete
  independence as the party’s goal. In 1936-37, the British
  government allowed provincial elections in India. The Congress gained power in eight out of 11 provinces. However, in
  1939, the Viceroy Linlithgow declared India’s entrance into World War II
  without consulting provincial governments. In protest, the Congress asked all
  its elected representatives to resign from the government. The Congress also supported the actions of the Azad
  Hind, an Indian provisional government established in Singapore during WWII.
• After
  Indian independence in 1947, the Indian National Congress became the dominant
  political party in the country. In 1952, in the first general election held
  after independence, the party swept to power in the national parliament and most
  state legislatures. It held power nationally until 1977, returned to power
  in 1980, and ruled until 1989, when it was once again defeated. It formed the
  government in 1991 at the head of a coalition as well as in 2004 and 2009. During this period, the Congress
  remained center-left in its social policies while steadily shifting from a
  socialist to a neoliberal economic outlook.
• Throughout the post-independence period, Congress leadership was dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty. From
  1951 until his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Congress’ paramount
  leader under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi.
  After Nehru’s death, Lal Bahadur Shastri took over but his death in 1966 elevated to power Indira Gandhi,
  Nehru’s daughter. Over time,
  Gandhi’s
  government grew increasingly more authoritarian and unrest among the opposition
  grew.
• In
  1984, Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi became nominal head of the Congress and
  prime minister upon her assassination. His government was accused of corruption and in 1991, Gandhi was
  killed by a bomb. He was succeeded
  as party leader by P. V. Narasimha Rao, who is often referred to as the “father of Indian economic
  reforms.” Rao was
  succeeded as president by Sitaram Kesri, the party’s first non-Brahmin leader, but in order to boost the party’s popularity, Congress
  leaders urged Sonia Gandhi – widow of Rajiv Gandhi – to assume the
  leadership of the party, which she holds until today.

Key Terms

Indian National Congress

One of two major political parties in India, founded in 1885 during the British Raj. In the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries, it became a pivotal participant in the Indian independence movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million participants in its opposition to British colonial rule in India.

Indian National Army trials

The British Indian trial by courts-martial of a number of officers of the Indian National Army (INA) between November 1945 and May 1946. INA was
an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia that fought against the British. Charges included treason, torture, murder, and abetment.

Azad Hind

An Indian provisional government established in occupied Singapore in 1943 and supported by Japan and Nazi Germany.

British Raj

The rule of the British
Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947.

Early Years

The Indian National Congress (INC or the Congress) was founded in 1885 by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society. Its objective was to obtain a greater share in government for educated Indians and create a platform for civic and political dialogue between educated Indians and the British Raj. The first session was held in December 1885 and attended by 72 delegates. Representing each province of India, the Party’s delegates comprised 54 Hindus and two Muslims. The rest were of Parsi and Jain backgrounds.

Within the next few years, the demands of the Congress became more radical in the face of constant opposition from the British government. The organization decided to advocate in favor of the independence movement because it would allow a new political system in which the Congress could be a major party.
In 1907, the Congress was split into two factions. The radicals, led by
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow the British Empire and the abandonment of all things British. The moderates, led by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, wanted reform within the framework of British rule. Tilak was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, who held the same point of view. Under them, India’s three major states, Maharashtra, Bengal, and Punjab, shaped the demand of the people and India’s nationalism. Gokhale criticized Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and disorder. But the Congress of 1906 did not have public membership and thus Tilak and his supporters were forced to leave the party.

Mass Movement

Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915. With the help of the moderate group led by Ghokhale, Gandhi became president of the Congress and formed an alliance with the Khilafat Movement,  a pan-Islamic, political protest campaign launched by Muslims to influence the British government and increase Hindu Muslim unity.  In protest, a number of leaders resigned to set up the Swaraj Party. The Khilafat movement soon collapsed and in the years following World War I, the party became associated with Mahatma Gandhi, who remained its unofficial spiritual leader and icon.

Gandhi’s ideas and strategies of non-violent civil disobedience, which
had to be carried out non-violently by withdrawing co-operation with the corrupt state,

initially appeared impractical to some Indians and congressmen. In the end, however, Gandhi’s vision brought millions of ordinary Indians into the movement, transforming it from an elitist struggle to a national one. The nationalist cause was expanded to include the interests and industries that formed the economy of common Indians. For example, in Champaran, Bihar, Gandhi championed the plight of desperately poor sharecroppers and landless farmers who were forced to pay oppressive taxes and grow cash crops at the expense of the subsistence crops that formed their food supply. The profits from the crops they grew were insufficient to provide for their sustenance. Proposals aimed at eradicating caste differences, untouchability, poverty, and religious and ethnic divisions made the Congress a forceful group that dominated the Indian independence movement. Although its members were predominantly Hindu, it had members from other religions, economic classes, and ethnic and linguistic groups.

In 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress declared complete independence as the party’s goal. In the winter of 1936-37, the British government allowed provincial elections in India that were held in eleven provinces. The Congress gained power in eight of the provinces. However, in 1939, the Viceroy Linlithgow declared India’s entrance into World War II without consulting provincial governments. In protest, the Congress asked all elected representatives to resign from the government. In 1943 Azad Hind, an Indian provisional government, was established in Singapore and supported by Japan. In 1946, Indian soldiers who had fought alongside the Japanese during World War II were tried by the British in the Indian National Army trials. In response, the Congress helped to form the INA Defense Committee, which assembled a legal team to defend the case of the soldiers of the Azad Hind government. The team included several famous lawyers, including Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali, and Jawaharlal Nehru. 

Gandhi and Nehru in 1942

Nehru emerged as the paramount leader of the Indian independence movement under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi and ruled India from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in 1964. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state: a sovereign, socialist, secular, and democratic republic.

Post-Independence Congress

After Indian independence in 1947, the Indian National Congress became the dominant political party in the country. In 1952, in the first general election held after independence, the party swept to power in the national parliament and most state legislatures. It held power nationally until 1977. It returned to power in 1980 and ruled until 1989, when it was once again defeated. It formed the government in 1991 at the head of a coalition as well as in 2004 and 2009, when it led the United Progressive Alliance. During this period, the Congress remained center-left in its social policies while steadily shifting from a socialist to a neoliberal economic outlook. The Party’s rivals at state level have been national parties the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), and various regional parties.

From 1951 until his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Congress’s paramount leader under the tutelage of Mahatma Gandhi. During his tenure, Nehru implemented policies based on import substitution industrialization and advocated a mixed economy, where the government-controlled public sector co-existed with the private sector. He believed the establishment of basic and heavy industries was fundamental to the development and modernization of the Indian economy. The Nehru government directed investment primarily into key public sector industries – steel, iron, coal, and power – promoting their development with subsidies and protectionist policies. Nehru embraced secularism, socialistic economic practices based on state-driven industrialization, and a non-aligned and non-confrontational foreign policy that became typical of the modern Congress Party. The policy of non-alignment during the Cold War meant Nehru received financial and technical support from both the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc to build India’s industrial base.

After Nehru’s death, no leader except
Lal Bahadur Shastri had his popular appeal. Shastri retained many members of Nehru’s Council of Ministers and appointed Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter and former Congress President, Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Shastri died in 1966, reportedly of a heart attack but the circumstances of his death remain mysterious.
After Shastri’s death, the Congress elected Indira Gandhi as leader.

In the parliamentary elections held in 1971, the Gandhi-led Congress won a landslide victory on a platform of progressive policies such as the elimination of poverty. However, from 1975, Gandhi’s government grew increasingly more authoritarian and unrest among the opposition grew. In 1975, the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, void on the grounds of electoral malpractice. Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. She moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. In response to increasing disorder, Gandhi’s cabinet and government recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency. During the 19-month emergency, widespread oppression and abuse of power by Gandhi’s unelected younger son and political heir Sanjay Gandhi and his close associates occurred. This period of political oppression ended in 1977, when Gandhi released all political prisoners and called fresh elections to the Lok Sabha.
The opposition Janata Party won a landslide victory over the Congress.

Indira Gandhi, second-longest-serving Prime Minister of India and the only woman to hold the office

Gandhi served as her father’s personal assistant and hostess during his tenure as prime minister between 1947 and 1964. She was elected Congress President in 1959. Upon her father’s death in 1964, Gandhi refused to enter the Congress party leadership contest and instead chose to become a cabinet minister in the government led by Lal Bahadur Shastri. In the Congress Party’s parliamentary leadership election held in early 1966, upon the death of Shastri, she succeeded Shastri as Prime Minister of India.

In 1978, Ghandi and her followers seceded and formed a new opposition party, popularly called Congress (I)—the I signifying Indira. During the next year, her new party attracted enough members of the legislature to become the official opposition. In the same year, Gandhi regained a parliamentary seat. In 1980, following a landslide victory for the Congress (I), she was again elected prime minister. The national election commission declared Congress (I) to be the real Indian National Congress for 1984 general election and the designation I was dropped. As prime minister, Gandhi became known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralization of power. In 1984, two of Gandhi’s bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, shot her with their service weapons in the garden of the prime minister’s residence.

In 1984, Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi became nominal head of the Congress and became prime minister upon her assassination, leading the Congress to a landslide victory. His administration took measures to reform the government bureaucracy and liberalize the country’s economy. After his government became embroiled in several financial scandals, however, his leadership became increasingly ineffectual, although Gandhi was regarded as a non-abrasive person who consulted other party members and refrained from hasty decisions. In 1991, Gandhi was killed by a bomb concealed in a basket of flowers carried by a woman associated with the Tamil Tigers.

Rajiv Gandhi was succeeded as party leader by P. V. Narasimha Rao, who was elected prime minister in 1991. His administration oversaw a major economic change and several home incidents that affected India’s national security. Rao, who held the Industries portfolio, is often referred to as the “father of Indian economic reforms.” By 1996, the party’s image was suffering from allegations of corruption and in elections that year the Congress was reduced to 140 seats, its lowest number in the Lok Sabha to that point, becoming parliament’s second largest party. Rao later resigned as prime minister and as party president. He was succeeded as president by Sitaram Kesri, the party’s first non-Brahmin leader.

Congress Today

In the 1998 general election, the Congress did not regain its leading position. To boost its popularity and improve its performance in the forthcoming election, Congress leaders urged Sonia Gandhi – widow of Rajiv Gandhi – to assume the leadership of the party. She had previously declined offers to become actively involved in party affairs and stayed away from politics. After her election as party leader, a section of the party that objected to the choice because of her Italian origins broke away and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Sharad Pawar. Sonia Gandhi remains the leader of the Congress, highlighting the long Indian tradition of politics as a dynastic affair. 

27.3.7: Calls for Independence

Learning Objective

Connect calls for independence in India to worldwide movements for independence

Key Points

• The
  decades following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were a period of growing
  political awareness, manifestation of Indian public opinion, and emergence of
  Indian leadership at both national and provincial levels. Members of the
  upwardly mobile and successful western-educated elites established organizations that
  aimed to ensure that they would gain influence in Indian politics but were not focused on the question of Indian independence.
• By 1900, although the Indian National Congress, the leading independence movement organization, emerged as an all-India political organization, its achievement
  was undermined by its failure to attract Muslims. In response, the All India
  Muslim League was founded to secure the interests of the Muslim diaspora in British
  India. In the 1940s, the League played a decisive role during the 1940s in the
  Indian self-rule movement and developed into the driving nationalist force that
  led to the creation of Pakistan in the Indian subcontinent. 
• The
  early part of the 20th century saw a more radical approach towards political
  self-rule (swaraj) propagated by
  increasingly influential Mahatma Gandhi.
  From the 1920s, the Congress adopted Gandhi’s policy of
  nonviolence and civil resistance and Muhammad Ali Jinnah focused on constitutional struggle
  for the rights of minorities in India. Some
  activists preached armed revolution, literary professionals used texts as a tool for political awareness, feminists
  promoted the emancipation of Indian women, and some groups championed the cause of the disadvantaged sections of Indian
  society. The
  work of these various movements led ultimately to the Indian Independence Act
  1947, which ended the suzerainty in India and the creation of Pakistan.
• In the aftermath of
  World War II, European colonies, controlling more than one billion people
  throughout the world, still ruled most of the Middle East, southeast Asia,
  Africa, and  until 1947 the Indian subcontinent. Independence
  movements
  emerged across Africa and in regions of Asia that remained under the European control. They often referred to the 1941 Atlantic Charter and applied a number of strategies, both militant and based on
  the civil disobedience model.

• New modernizing forms of African nationalism gained strength in the
  early 20th-century with the emergence of Pan-Africanism. By
  the 1930s, the colonial powers in Africa had cultivated, sometimes inadvertently, a small
  elite group of leaders who advocated the idea of
  self-determination. The struggle culminated in 1960, known today as the Year of Africa, when the
  number of independent countries rose from nine to
  26 and African nations were recognized as a force to be reckoned with on the international arena.
  Many colonies continued to fight for their independence
  throughout the 1960s and 1970s. 

• In
  Asia, the image of European pre-eminence was shattered by the wartime Japanese
  occupations of large portions of British, French, and Dutch territories in the
  Pacific. The destabilization of European rule led to the rapid growth of
  nationalist movements, and nearly all Asian colonies gained independence in the aftermath of World War II, sometimes as a result of violent conflicts.

Key Terms

Indian National Congress

One of two major political parties
in India, founded in 1885 during the British Raj. In the late 19th and
early to mid-20th centuries, it became a pivotal participant in the Indian
independence movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million
participants in its opposition to British colonial rule in India.

swaraj

A Hindi term that means generally self-governance or self-rule and was used to refer to Gandhi’s concept for Indian independence from foreign domination. It put stress on governance not by a hierarchical government, but through individual self-governance and community building focused  on political decentralization.

Quit India Movement

A civil
disobedience movement launched in Bombay by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8,
1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British Rule of
India. Gandhi made a call to do or die in a
speech delivered in Bombay at the Gowalia Tank Maidan. The All-India
Congress Committee launched a mass protest demanding what Gandhi called
“An Orderly British Withdrawal” from India. Almost the entire
leadership of the Indian National Congress was imprisoned without trial within
hours of Gandhi’s speech.

Pan-Africanism

A worldwide intellectual movement to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all people of African descent. Based upon a common fate going back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans, with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the United States. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress and aims to “unify and uplift” people of African descent.

Atlantic Charter

A pivotal policy statement issued in 1941 that defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. The leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States drafted the work and the Allies of World War II later confirmed it. The document stated the ideal goals of the war: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes against the wishes of the people; right to self-determination; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations.

Indian Civil Service

The elite higher civil service of the British Empire in British India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.

Year of Africa

A term used to refer to 1960 because of the independence of 17 African nations that took place that year, highlighting the growing Pan-African sentiments in the continent. The year brought about the culmination of African independence movements and the subsequent emergence of Africa as a major force in the United Nations.

All India Muslim League

A political party established during the early years of the 20th century in the British Indian Empire. Its strong advocacy for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, successfully led to the partition of British India in 1947 by the British Empire.

Indian Independence Movement

The decades following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were a period of growing political awareness, manifestation of Indian public opinion, and emergence of Indian leadership at both national and provincial levels.
Members of the upwardly mobile and successful western-educated elites, engaged in professions such as law, teaching, and journalism, established organizations to ensure they would gain influence in Indian politics (e.g., East India Association in 1867, Indian National Association in 1876, the Indian National Congress in 1885). Despite their claims to represent all India, these organizations initially voiced the interests of urban elites, and the number of participants from other social and economic backgrounds remained negligible.

This new middle class of educated professionals, although spread thinly across the country, expressed the growing sense of solidarity, empowerment, and discontent with the British rule, fueled by success in education and accordant benefits, including employment in the Indian Civil Service. Many Indians were especially encouraged when Canada was granted dominion status in 1867 and established an autonomous democratic constitution. Furthermore, the work of contemporaneous scholars like Monier Monier-Williams and Max Müller, who presented ancient India as a great civilization, contributed to the growing feeling of national pride. Discontent, on the other hand, came not just from policies of racial discrimination at the hands of the British in India, but also from specific government actions like the use of Indian troops in imperial campaigns (e.g. in the Second Anglo-Afghan War) and the attempts to control the vernacular press.

Viceroy Lord Ripon’s partial reversal of the Ilbert Bill (1883), a legislative measure that proposed putting Indian judges in the Bengal Presidency on equal footing with British ones, that transformed the discontent into political action. The event contributed to the establishment of the Indian National Congress, the single most influential organization of the Indian independence movement. During its first twenty years, Congress primarily debated British policy toward India. However, its debates created a new outlook that held Great Britain responsible for draining India of its wealth. Britain did this, the nationalists claimed, by unfair trade, restraint on indigenous Indian industry, and using Indian taxes to pay the high salaries of the British civil servants in India.

By 1900, although the Congress had emerged as an all-India political organization, its achievement was undermined by its singular failure to attract Muslims, who felt that their representation in government service was inadequate. In response, the All India Muslim League was founded in 1906. In 1916, the League’s leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joined the Indian National Congress. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favor outright self-rule, considering British influences on education, law, culture, and industry as beneficial to India.
To secure the interests of the Muslim diaspora in British India, the League eventually played a decisive role during the 1940s in the Indian self-rule movement and developed into the driving nationalist force that led to the creation of Pakistan in the Indian subcontinent. 

The nationalistic sentiments among Congress members led the movement to be represented in the bodies of government and the legislation and administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country, albeit as part of the Empire. However, the early part of the 20th century saw a more radical approach towards political self-rule (swaraj) propagated by increasingly influential Mahatma Gandhi. Swaraj put stress on governance not by a hierarchical government, but by individuals and community building. The focus was on political decentralization. Since this was against the political and social systems followed by Britain, swaraj advocated India’s discarding British political, economic, bureaucratic, legal, military, and educational institutions. 

Demonstration against the British rule in India, c. 1930s

By 1929, in the midst of rising political discontent and increasingly violent regional movements, the call for complete sovereignty and end of British rule began to find increasing grounds within the Congress leadership. Under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru at his historic Lahore session in December 1929, the Indian National Congress adopted a resolution calling for complete self-rule and end of British rule.

The last stages of the self-rule struggle from the 1920s saw the Congress adopt Gandhi’s policy of nonviolence and civil resistance, Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s constitutional struggle for the rights of minorities in India, and several other campaigns. Some activists preached armed revolution to achieve self-rule. Poets and writers used literature, poetry, and speech as toolS for political awareness. Feminists promoted the emancipation of Indian women and their participation in national politics. Others championed the cause of the disadvantaged sections of Indian society within the larger self-rule movement. The period of the Second World War saw the peak of the campaigns by the Quit India Movement, which
demanded what Gandhi
called “an orderly British withdrawal” from India, and the Indian National Army movement
– an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in
1942 in Southeast Asia that fought against the British. The work of these movements led ultimately to the Indian Independence Act 1947, which ended the suzerainty in India and the creation of Pakistan. India remained a Dominion of the Crown until 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, establishing the Republic of India. Pakistan was a dominion until 1956, when it adopted its first republican constitution. In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence as the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Decolonization as Global Struggle

The independence struggle of India was only one of many that succeeded in the post-World War II era.

In the aftermath of World War II, European colonies, controlling more than one billion people throughout the world, still ruled most of the Middle East, southeast Asia, Africa, and until 1947 the Indian subcontinent.
Independence movements applying a number of different strategies, both militant and based on the civil disobedience model, emerged across the African continent and in regions of Asia that remained under the European control.

In Africa,
Britain, and France had the largest holdings, but Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal also had colonies. As a result of colonialism and imperialism, a majority of Africa lost sovereignty and control of precious natural resources.
By the 1930s, the colonial powers had cultivated, sometimes inadvertently, a small elite of leaders educated in Western universities and advocated the idea of self-determination. These leaders came to lead the struggles for independence and included leading nationalists such as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Gold Coast, now Ghana), Julius Nyerere (Tanganyika, now Tanzania), Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal), Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), and Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Côte d’Ivoire).

In the northeast the continued independence of the Empire of Ethiopia remained a beacon of hope to pro-independence activists. However, with the anti-colonial wars of the 1900s barely over, modern forms of African nationalism gained strength in the early 20th-century with the emergence of Pan-Africanism.
This worldwide intellectual movement aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all people of African descent. It was based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress and aims to “unify and uplift” people of African descent.
Modern Pan-Africanism began around the start of the 20th century. The African Association, later renamed the Pan-African Association, was established around 1897 by Henry Sylvester-Williams, who organized the First Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. 

The red, black, and green Pan-African flag designed by the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1920

Variations of the flag have been used in various countries and territories in Africa and the Americas to represent Pan-Africanist ideologies. Among these are the flags of Malawi, Kenya, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Several Pan-African organizations and movements have often employed the emblematic red, black, and green tri-color scheme in variety of contexts. Additionally, the flags of a number of nations in Africa and of Pan-African groups use green, yellow, and red. This color combination was originally adopted from the 1897 flag of Ethiopia and was inspired by the fact that Ethiopia is the continent’s oldest independent nation.

In 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss the postwar world, resulting in the Atlantic Charter. It was not a treaty and was not submitted to the British Parliament or the Senate of the United States for ratification, but became a very influential document. Among the principal points of the Charter were post-war territorial adjustments to be decided in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned and the statement that all people had a right to self-determination. While
Churchill rejected its universal applicability when it came to the self-determination of subject nations, after World War II, the U.S. and the African colonies put pressure on Britain to abide by the terms of the Atlantic Charter. 

In Asia, the image of European pre-eminence was shattered by the wartime Japanese occupations of large portions of British, French, and Dutch territories in the Pacific. The destabilization of European rule led to the rapid growth of nationalist movements—especially in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma, and French Indochina.
In the Philippines, the U.S. remained committed to its previous pledges to grant the islands their independence, and the Philippines became the first of the Western-controlled Asian colonies to become independent post-World War II. However, the Philippines remained under pressure to adopt a political and economic system similar to their old imperial master.

A year after India gained its independence, the exhausted British granted independence to Burma and Ceylon. In the Middle East, Britain granted independence to Jordan in 1946 and two years later ended its mandate of Palestine.
Following the end of the war, nationalists in Indonesia demanded complete independence from the Netherlands. A brutal conflict ensued and in 1949, through United Nations mediation, the Dutch East Indies achieved independence, becoming the new nation of Indonesia.
France granted the State of Vietnam based in Saigon independence in 1949 whilst Laos and Cambodia received independence in 1953.

In Africa, the struggle culminated in 1960, known today as the Year of Africa, when
the number of independent countries rose from nine (with population 95 million) to 26 (population 180 million), gaining their independence from Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom. The Year of Africa altered the symbolic status of Africans worldwide by forcing the world to recognize the existence of African nations on the international arena. It marked the beginning of a new, more Afrocentric era in African studies and it was a major boost for African Americans, who were engaged in a civil rights strife within their own country. The struggle of independence in Africa, however, did not end but was fueled by the events of 1960 as many colonies continued to fight for their independence throughout the 1960s and 1970s. 

27.4: Indochina

27.4.1: Pre-French Indochina

The diverse cultures of what would eventually become French Indochina traced their roots to pre-modern kingdoms and empires. For centuries this area was shaped by numerous influences, most notably the expansive trade and political contacts of South and East Asia. 

Learning Objective

Describe the cultures of Indochina before French colonialism

Key Points

• In
  the pre-modern era, significant parts of the region that would later become
  French Indochina belonged to what was known as Greater India. The kingdoms that belonged to
  Greater India and eventually overlapped with what would become French Indochina
  were Funan and its successor Chenla, Champa, and the Khmer Empire. 
• Champa controlled what is now
  south and central Vietnam since approximately 192 CE. The dominant religion was
  Hinduism and the culture was heavily influenced by India.
  Between
  the 3rd and the 5th centuries, Funan and its successor, Chenla, coalesced in
  present-day Cambodia and southwestern Vietnam. For more than 2,000 years, what
  was to become Cambodia absorbed influences from India. The Khmer Empire,
  with the capital city in Angkor, grew out of the remnants of Chenla, becoming
  firmly established in 802. 
• After
  a long series of wars with neighboring kingdoms, Angkor was sacked by the
  Ayutthaya Kingdom and abandoned in 1432. The period that followed is today known as the
  Dark Ages of Cambodia, the historical era from the early 15th century to 1863. In
  the 19th century a renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of
  Cambodia resulted in the Siamese–Vietnamese War
  (1841–1845) that placed the country under joint
  suzerainty. 
• Laos
  traces its history to the kingdom of Lan Xang (Million Elephants), founded in
  the 14th century by Lao prince Fa Ngum. Ngum made Theravada Buddhism the state religion. Within 20
  years of its formation, the kingdom expanded eastward to Champa and along the
  Annamite mountains in Vietnam. In 1421, Lan Xang collapsed into warring factions
  for the next 100 years. In
  the 17th century, Lan Xang would further expand its frontiers and in today’s
  Laos, this period is often regarded as the country’s golden age. 
• In
  the 18th century, Burmese armies overran northern Laos and annexed Luang Phrabang,
  while Champasak eventually came under Siamese suzerainty. Chao Anouvong was
  installed as a vassal king of Vientiane by the Siamese. Under Vietnamese pressure, he
  rebelled against the Siamese in 1826. The rebellion failed and Vientiane was
  ransacked.
• In
  938, the Vietnamese lord Ngo Quyen defeated the forces of the Chinese Southern
  Han state and achieved full independence for Vietnam after a millennium of
  Chinese domination. Renamed as Dai Viet (Great Viet), the state enjoyed a
  golden era between the 11th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. Between the 11th
  and 18th centuries, Vietnam expanded southward, eventually conquering the
  kingdom of Champa and part of the Khmer Empire. Internal conflicts between local lords divided the country that eventually fell under the French rule.

Key Terms

Indochina

A geographical term originating in the early 19th century and referring to the continental portion of the region now known as Southeast Asia. The name refers to the lands historically within the cultural influence of India and China and physically bound by India in the west and China in the north. It corresponds to the present-day areas of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and (variably) peninsular Malaysia. The term was later adopted as the name of the French colony of today’s Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Greater India

A term most commonly used to encompass the historical and geographic extent of all political entities of the Indian subcontinent and beyond. To varying degrees, these entities were transformed by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements of pre-Islamic India.

Dark Ages of Cambodia

The historical era from the early 15th century to 1863, the year that marks the beginning of the French Protectorate of Cambodia. As reliable sources for the 15th and 16th century in particular are very rare, a fully defensible and conclusive explanation for the decline of the Khmer Empire, recognized unanimously by the scientific community, has so far not been produced.

Indochina

Indochina, originally Indo-China, is a geographical term originating in the early 19th century for the continental portion of the region now known as Southeast Asia. The name refers to the lands historically within the cultural influence of India and China and physically bound by India in the west and China in the north. It corresponds to the present-day areas of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and (variably) peninsular Malaysia. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today’s Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), and the entire area of Indochina is now usually referred to as the Indochinese Peninsula or Mainland Southeast Asia. 

An 1886 map of Indochina, Scottish Geographical Magazine (Vol. II) edited by Hugh A. Webster and Arthur Silva White.

The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as indo-chinois in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term Indo-Chinese to describe the area’s inhabitants and their languages in 1808. As the French established the colony of French Indochina, use of the term became restricted to the French colony and today the area is usually referred to as Mainland Southeast Asia.

Greater India

In the pre-modern era, significant parts of the region that would later become French Indochina belonged to what is known as Greater India. Although the term is not precise, Greater India is most commonly used to encompass the historical and geographic extent of all political entities of the Indian subcontinent and beyond that had to varying degrees been transformed by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements of pre-Islamic India. Since around 500 B.C. Asia’s expanding land and maritime trade resulted in prolonged socioeconomic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs into regional cosmology, particularly in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. The kingdoms that belonged to Greater India and eventually overlapped with what would become French Indochina were Funan and its successor Chenla, Champa, and the Khmer Empire. 

Champa controlled what is now south and central Vietnam since approximately 192 CE. The dominant religion was Hinduism and the culture was heavily influenced by India. By the late 15th century, the Vietnamese—descendants of the Sinic civilization sphere—conquered the last remaining territories of the once powerful maritime kingdom of Champa. The last surviving Chams began their diaspora in 1471, many resettling in Khmer territory. 

Between the 3rd and the 5th centuries, Funan and its successor, Chenla, coalesced in present-day Cambodia and southwestern Vietnam. For more than 2,000 years, what was to become Cambodia absorbed influences from India, passing them on to other Southeast Asian civilizations that are now Thailand and Laos. The Khmer Empire, with the capital city in Angkor, grew out of the remnants of Chenla, firmly established in 802 when Jayavarman II declared independence from Java. He and his followers instituted the cult of the God-king and began a series of conquests that formed an empire, which flourished in the area from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Around the 13th century, monks from Sri Lanka introduced Theravada Buddhism to Southeast Asia. The religion spread and eventually displaced Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism as the popular religion of Angkor. 

After a long series of wars with neighboring kingdoms, Angkor was sacked by the Ayutthaya Kingdom and abandoned in 1432 because of ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown. This led to a period of economic, social, and cultural stagnation when the kingdom’s internal affairs came increasingly under the control of its neighbors. The period that followed is today known as the Dark Ages of Cambodia: the historical era from the early 15th century to 1863, the year that marks the beginning of the French Protectorate of Cambodia. As reliable sources from this period are very rare, a fully defensible and conclusive explanation for the decline of the Khmer Empire, recognized unanimously by the scientific community, has so far not been produced.

In the 19th century a renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of Cambodia resulted in a period when Vietnamese officials attempted to force the Khmers to adopt Vietnamese customs. This led to several rebellions against the Vietnamese and appeals to Thailand for assistance. The Siamese-Vietnamese War (1841–1845) ended with an agreement to place the country under joint suzerainty. This later led to the signing of a treaty for French Protection of Cambodia by King Norodom Prohmborirak.

Angkor Wat, the front side of the main complex, photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen.

Angkor was the capital city of Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. It was a megacity supporting at least 0.1% of the global population during 1010-1220. The city houses the magnificent Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia’s popular tourist attractions. In 2007, an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest pre-industrial city in the world.

Lan Xang

Laos traces its history to the kingdom of Lan Xang (Million Elephants), founded in the 14th century by Lao prince Fa Ngum, who with 10,000 Khmer troops took over Vientiane. Ngum made Theravada Buddhism the state religion. Within 20 years of its formation, the kingdom expanded eastward to Champa and along the Annamite mountains in Vietnam. Following the exile of Ngum, his eldest son, Oun Heuan, came to the throne under the name Samsenthai and reigned for 43 years. During his reign, Lan Xang became an important trade center. After his death in 1421, Lan Xang collapsed into warring factions for the next 100 years.

In the 17th century, Lan Xang would further expand its frontiers and in today’s history of Laos, this period is often regarded as the country’s golden age. In the 18th century, Burmese armies overran northern Laos and annexed Luang Phrabang, while Champasak eventually came under Siamese suzerainty. Chao Anouvong was installed as a vassal king of Vientiane by the Siamese. He encouraged a renaissance of Lao fine arts and literature. Under Vietnamese pressure, he rebelled against the Siamese in 1826. The rebellion failed and Vientiane was ransacked. Anouvong was taken to Bangkok as a prisoner, where he died.

Lan Xang had ethnic diversity from trade and overland ethnic migrations. The multiple hill tribe peoples were grouped into the broad cultural categories of Lao Theung (which included most indigenous groups and the Mon-Khmer) and Lao Sung. The Lao Loum were ethnically dominant and there were several closely related Tai groups. Perhaps because of the complicated ethnic diversity of Lan Xang, the structure of society was fairly straightforward, especially in comparison to the Khmer with their complex caste system and concepts of a divine kingship or devaraja.

Dynastic Vietnam

In 938, the Vietnamese lord Ngo Quyen defeated the forces of the Chinese Southern Han state and achieved full independence for Vietnam after a millennium of Chinese domination. Renamed as Dai Viet (Great Viet), the state enjoyed a golden era between the 11th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. Buddhism flourished and became the state religion. In the 15th century, Vietnamese independence was briefly interrupted by the Chinese Ming dynasty, but was restored by Le Loi, the founder of the Le dynasty. The Vietnamese dynasties reached their zenith in the Le dynasty of the 15th century. Between the 11th and 18th centuries, Vietnam expanded southward, eventually conquering the kingdom of Champa and part of the Khmer Empire. From the 16th century, civil strife and frequent political infighting engulfed much of Vietnam. Although the state remained nominally under the Le dynasty, actual power was divided between the northern Trinh lords and the southern Nguyen lords, who engaged in a civil war for more than four decades before a truce was called in the 1670s. During this time, the Nguyen expanded southern Vietnam into the Mekong Delta, annexing the Central Highlands and the Khmer lands there.

The division of the country ended a century later when the Tay Son brothers established a new dynasty. However, their rule did not last long, and they were defeated by the remnants of the Nguyen lords aided by the French, who soon took over the region.  

27.4.2: The French Protectorate in Indochina

To ensure their presence in Southeast Asia, the French used the pretext of anti-Catholic persecution in Vietnam to take advantage of the internal weaknesses of Cambodia and Laos, establishing a colony with the predominant goal of economic exploitation. 

Learning Objective

Analyze the French reasons for establishing a protectorate in Indochina

Key Points

• The
  French were determined to establish their presence in Southeast Asia and used religious persecution as pretext for intervention.
  In 1857, the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc executed two Spanish
  Catholic missionaries. It was not the first incident of this nature but this time,
  it coincided with the Second Opium War. France and Britain had just
  dispatched a joint military expedition to the Far East, so the French had troops on hand and could easily intervene in Annam. 
• In
  1858, a joint French and Spanish expedition landed at Tourane (Da Nang) and
  captured the town. What began as a limited punitive campaign known as
  Cochincina Campaign ended as a French war of conquest. By
  1884, the entire country gradually came under French rule. Cochichina, Annam, and
  Tonkin were formally integrated into the union
  of French Indochina in 1887.
• During the 19th century, the kingdom of Cambodia was reduced to a vassal state of the
  kingdom of Siam. In 1863, King Norodom of Cambodia, installed as
  a leader by Siam, requested a French protectorate over his kingdom. In 1867, Siam renounced
  suzerainty over Cambodia and officially recognized the 1863 French
  protectorate on Cambodia. Under the treaty with the French, the
  Cambodian monarchy was allowed to remain, but power was largely vested in a
  resident general to be housed in Phnom Penh.
• After
  the acquirement of Cambodia in 1863, French explorers went on several
  expeditions along the Mekong River to find possible trade relations for the
  territories of French Cambodia and Cochinchina to the south. In 1885, a French
  consulate was established in Luang Prabang, which along with the province of
  Vientiane was a vassal kingdom to Siam. Following French intervention in a conflict
  between Chinese forces and Siam, King Oun Kham, who had
  received support from the French, requested a French protectorate over his
  kingdom. Luang Prabang became a protectorate of France in 1889.

• In
  1893, France went to war with Siam. The kingdom was quickly forced to recognize
  French control over the eastern side of the Mekong River. Pavie continued to
  support French expeditions in Laotian territory and gave the territory its
  modern-day name of Laos. Following Siam’s acceptance of the ultimatum to cede
  the lands east of the Mekong including its islands, the Protectorate of Laos
  was officially established and the administrative capital moved from Luang
  Prabang to Vientiane. 

• On
  paper, Cochinchina was the only region of French Indochina with direct
  rule,  but the differences between direct and indirect rule were
  purely theoretical and political interference was equally intrusive across the
  entire area. The
  French adopted a policy of assimilation rather than association. However, their settlement in Indochina
  did not occur at a grand scale as French Indochina was seen as a colonie
  d’exploitation économique (economic colony) rather than a colonie
  de peuplement (settlement colony).

Key Terms

Cochincina Campaign

An 1858–1862 military campaign fought between the French and Spanish on one side and the Vietnamese on the other. It began as a limited punitive campaign and ended as a French war of conquest. The war concluded with the establishment of the French colony of Cochinchina, a development that inaugurated nearly a century of French colonial dominance in Vietnam.

French Indochina

A grouping of French colonial territories in Southeast Asia consisting of three Vietnamese regions of Tonkin (north), Annam (center), and Cochinchina (south), Cambodia, and Laos, with the leased Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan added in 1898. The capital was moved from Saigon (in Cochinchina) to Hanoi (Tonkin) in 1902 and again to Da Lat (Annam) in 1939. In 1945 it was moved back to Hanoi.

Background: French Imperial Ambitions in Indochina

The French had few pretexts to justify their imperial ambitions in Indochina. In the early years of the 19th century, some in France believed that the Vietnamese emperor Gia Long owed the French a favor for the help French troops had given him in 1802 against his Tay Son enemies. However, it soon became clear that Gia Long felt no more bound to France than he did to China, which had also provided help. Gia Long believed that as the French government did not honor its agreement to assist him in the civil war—the Frenchmen who helped were volunteers and adventurers, not government units—he was not obliged to return any favors. Vietnamese leaders were interested in reproducing the French strategies of fortification and in buying French cannon and rifles, but neither Gia Long nor his successor Minh Mang had any intention of coming under French influence.

However, the French were determined to establish their presence in the region and it was religious persecution that they eventually used as pretext for intervention. French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since the 17th century and by the middle of the 19th century, there were around 300,000 Roman Catholic converts in Annam and Tonkin. Most of the bishops and priests were either French or Spanish. Many in Vietnam were suspicious of this sizable Christian community and its foreign leaders. The French, conversely, began to claim responsibility for their safety. The tension built up gradually. During the 1840s, persecution or harassment of Catholic missionaries in Vietnam by the Vietnamese emperors Minh Mang and Thieu Tri evoked only sporadic and unofficial French reprisals. In 1857, the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc executed two Spanish Catholic missionaries. It was neither the first nor the last such incident and on previous occasions the French government had overlooked them. But this time, the incident coincided with the Second Opium War. France and Britain had just dispatched a joint military expedition to the Far East, so the French had troops on hand and could easily intervene in Annam. 

Seizing Control

In 1858, a joint French and Spanish expedition landed at Tourane (Da Nang) and captured the town.
What began as a limited punitive campaign, known as Cochincina Campaign, ended as a French war of conquest.
Sailing south, French troops captured the poorly defended city of Saigon in 1859. In 1862, the Vietnamese government was forced to cede three additional provinces and Emperor Tu Duc was forced to cede three treaty ports in Annam and Tonkin as well as all of Cochinchina, the latter formally declared a French territory in 1864. In 1867, three other provinces were added to French-controlled territories.
By 1884, the entire country had come under French rule, with the central and northern parts of Vietnam separated in the two protectorates of Annam and Tonkin. The three Vietnamese entities were formally integrated into the union of French Indochina in 1887.

French marine infantrymen in Tonkin, c. 1884-1888

French troops landed in Vietnam in 1858 and by the mid-1880s had established a firm grip over the northern region. Nationalist sentiments developed in the 19th century and intensified during and after World War I, but all the uprisings and tentative efforts failed to obtain any concessions from the French overseers.

During the 19th century, the kingdom of Cambodia had been reduced to a vassal state of the kingdom of Siam (present-day Thailand), which had annexed its western provinces while growing influence from the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty threatened the eastern portion of the country. In 1863, King Norodom of Cambodia, installed as a leader by Siam, requested a French protectorate over his kingdom. At the time, Pierre-Paul de La Grandière, colonial governor of Cochinchina, was carrying out plans to expand French rule over the whole of Vietnam and viewed Cambodia as a buffer between French possessions in Vietnam and Siam. The country gradually fell under the French control. In 1867, Siam renounced suzerainty over Cambodia and officially recognized the 1863 French protectorate on Cambodia in exchange for the control of Battambang and Siem Reap provinces, which officially became part of Thailand. These provinces were ceded back to Cambodia by a border treaty between France and Siam in the first decade of the 20th century. Under the treaty with the French, the Cambodian monarchy was allowed to remain, but power was largely vested in a resident general to be housed in Phnom Penh. France was also to be in charge of Cambodia’s foreign and trade relations and provide military protection. 

After the acquisition of Cambodia in 1863, French explorers went on several expeditions along the Mekong River to find possible trade relations for the territories of French Cambodia and Cochinchina to the south. In 1885, a French consulate was established in Luang Prabang, which along with the province of Vientiane was a vassal kingdom to Siam. Siam soon feared that France was planning to annex Luang Prabang and signed a treaty with them in 1886 that recognized Siam’s suzerainty over the Lao kingdoms. By the end of 1886, however, Auguste Pavie was named vice-consul to Luang Prabang and was in charge of expeditions occurring in Laotian territory, with the possibility of turning Laos into a French territory. Following French intervention in a conflict between Chinese forces and Siam, King Oun Kham of Luang Prabang who had received support from the French, requested a French protectorate over his kingdom. Luang Prabang became a protectorate of France in 1889.

In 1893, France went to war with Siam. The kingdom was quickly forced to recognize French control over the eastern side of the Mekong River. Pavie continued to support French expeditions in Laotian territory and gave the territory its modern-day name of Laos. Following Siam’s acceptance of the ultimatum to cede the lands east of the Mekong including its islands, the Protectorate of Laos was officially established and the administrative capital moved from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. However, Luang Prabang remained the seat of the royal family, whose power was reduced to figureheads, while the actual power was transferred over to French officials.

Outcome

On paper, Cochinchina was the only region of French Indochina with direct rule imposed, with the province legally annexed by France. The rest of the provinces, Tonkin, Annam, Cambodia, and Laos, had the official status of French protectorate. However, the differences between direct and indirect rule were purely theoretical and political interference was equally intrusive across the entire area.

Map of French Indochina from the colonial period showing its subdivisions, c. 1930

French Indochina was formed on October 17, 1887, from Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina (which together form modern Vietnam), and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War in 1893.

The French adopted a policy of assimilation rather than association. This allowed the colonialists to rule through native rulers while upholding their traditional cultures and hierarchy, similar to British rule in Malaya. However, the French chose to adopt the policy of assimilation. French was the language of administration. The Napoleonic Code was introduced in 1879 in the five provinces, sweeping away the Confucianism that has existed for centuries in Indochina.

Unlike Algeria, French settlement in Indochina did not occur at a grand scale. By 1940, only about 34,000 French civilians lived in French Indochina, along with a smaller number of French military personnel and government workers. The principal reason why French settlement did not grow in a manner similar to that of French North Africa (which had a population of over 1 million French civilians) was that French Indochina was seen as a colonie d’exploitation économique (economic colony) rather than a colonie de peuplement (settlement colony).

27.4.3: Economic and Social Impacts of Imperialism in Indochina

As French Indochina was the colony of financial exploitation, economic and social development in the region aimed to benefit the French and a small group of local wealthy elites, with limited investments to produce immediate returns rather than long-term benefits for the local populations. 

Learning Objective

Explain how French imperialism affected the people of Indochina

Key Points

• The Vietnamese, Lao, and Khmer ethnic groups
  formed the majority of their respective colony’s populations. According to a 1913 estimate, around 95% of French Indochina’s population was
  rural and urbanization grew slowly over the course of French rule. French was the principal language of
  education, government, trade, and media, widespread among urban
  and semi-urban populations and the elite and
  educated. Local populations still largely spoke their
  native languages. 
• French Indochina was designated as a colonie
  d’exploitation (colony of economic exploitation) by the French
  government, but both exploitation and economic development differed
  significantly across the main regions of the colony. The
  economic and social policies introduced under Governor-General Paul Doumer, who
  arrived in 1897, determined the
  development of French Indochina. 
• Vietnam
  was to become a source of raw materials and a market for tariff-protected goods
  produced by French industries. Funding for the colonial government came from taxes on local populations, and the French government established a
  near monopoly on the trade of opium, salt, and rice alcohol. The
  exploitation of natural resources for direct export was the chief purpose of
  all French investments, with rice, coal, rare minerals, and later rubber
  as the main products. 
• At
  the turn of the 20th century, the growing automobile industry in France
  resulted in the growth of the rubber industry in French Indochina. Plantations were built throughout the colony, especially in Annam and Cochinchina.
  France soon became a leading producer of rubber and Indochinese rubber was prized in the industrialized world. The success of rubber plantations in French
  Indochina resulted in an increase in investment in the colony by various firms.
  However, because all investments aimed to attain immediate high returns for
  investors, only a small fraction of profit was reinvested.
• Economically,
  the French did not develop Laos and Cambodia to the scale that they did Vietnam. The colonial government’s budget originally relied largely on tax
  collections in Cambodia as its main source of revenue, and Cambodians paid the
  highest taxes per capita in French Indochina.
  As French rule strengthened, development slowly began in Cambodia, where rice and pepper
  crops allowed the economy to grow. As the French automobile industry grew, rubber
  plantations like the ones already in Cochinchina and Annam were built and run
  by French investors.

• Economic progress made under the French benefited the French and the
  small class of the local wealthy created by the colonial regime. The masses
  were deprived of economic and social benefits. The
  French imposed high taxes to finance their ambitious program of public
  works and recruited forced labor from local populations without protection against exploitation in the
  mines and rubber plantations.

Key Terms

French Indochina

A grouping of French colonial
territories in Southeast Asia consisting of three Vietnamese regions of Tonkin
(north), Annam (center), and Cochinchina (south), Cambodia, and Laos, with the
leased Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan added in 1898. The capital was moved
from Saigon (in Cochinchina) to Hanoi (Tonkin) in 1902 and again to Da Lat
(Annam) in 1939. In 1945 it was moved back to Hanoi.

colony of economic exploitation

A colony conquered to exploit its natural resources and native population. The practice contrasts with the colonies of settlement conquered to establish a branch of the metropolis (Motherland) and for the exploitation of its natural resources and native population.

French Indochine Society

The Vietnamese, Lao, and Khmer ethnic groups formed the majority of their respective colony’s populations. Minority groups such as the Muong, Tay, Chams, and Jarai were collectively known as Montagnards and resided principally in the mountain regions of Indochina. Ethnic Han Chinese were largely concentrated in major cities, especially in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia where they became heavily involved in trade and commerce. According to a 1913 estimate, 95% of French Indochina’s population was rural and urbanization grew slowly over the course of French rule.
Since French Indochina was seen as a colonie d’exploitation économique (economic colony) rather than a colonie de peuplement (settlement colony), by 1940 only about 34,000 French civilians lived in the region, along with a smaller number of French military personnel and government workers.  

During French colonial rule, French was the principal language of education, government, trade, and media. It became widespread among urban and semi-urban populations and among the elite and educated. This was most notable in the colonies of Tonkin and Cochinchina, where French influence was particularly prominent, while Annam, Laos, and Cambodia were less influenced by French education. Despite the dominance of French among the educated, local populations still largely spoke their native languages. 

A French government official and Lao children in Luang Prabang, 1887, French National Library.

The French did not plan to expand the Laotian economy and geographic isolation also led to Laos being less influenced from France compared to other French colonies. In a 1937 estimate, only 574 French civilians along with a smaller number of government workers lived in Laos, a figure significantly smaller than in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Economy

French Indochina was designated as a colonie d’exploitation (colony of economic exploitation) by the French government, but both exploitation and economic development differed significantly across the main regions of the colony. 

The economic and social policies introduced under Governor-General Paul Doumer, who arrived in 1897, determined the development of French Indochina. The railroads, highways, harbors, bridges, canals, and other public works built by the French were almost all started under Doumer, whose aim was a rapid and systematic exploitation of Indochina’s potential wealth for the benefit of France. Vietnam became a source of raw materials and a market for tariff-protected goods produced by French industries. Funding for the colonial government came from taxes on local populations and the French government established a near monopoly on the trade of opium, salt, and rice alcohol. The trade of those three products formed about 44% of the colonial government’s budget in 1920 but declined to 20% by 1930 as the colony began to economically diversify. Indochina was the second most invested-in French colony by 1940 after Algeria, with investments totaling up to 6.7 million francs.

The exploitation of natural resources for direct export was the chief purpose of all French investments, with rice, coal, rare minerals, and later also rubber as the main products. Doumer and his successors up to the eve of World War II were not interested in promoting industry, which was limited to the production of goods for immediate local consumption. Among these enterprises—located chiefly in Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong (the outport for Hanoi)—were breweries, distilleries, small sugar refineries, rice and paper mills, and glass and cement factories. The greatest industrial establishment was a textile factory at Nam Dinh, which employed more than 5,000 workers. The total number of workers employed by all industries and mines in Vietnam was some 100,000 in 1930.

At the turn of the 20th century, the growing automobile industry in France resulted in the growth of the rubber industry in French Indochina and plantations were built throughout the colony, especially in Annam and Cochinchina. France soon became a leading producer of rubber and Indochinese rubber became prized in the industrialized world. The success of rubber plantations in French Indochina resulted in an increase in investment in the colony by various firms. With the growing number of investments in the colony’s mines as well as rubber, tea, and coffee plantations, French Indochina began to industrialize as factories opened in the colony. These new factories produced textiles, cigarettes, beer, and cement, which were then exported throughout the French Empire. Because the aim of all investments was not the systematic economic development of the colony but the attainment of immediate high returns for investors, only a small fraction of the profits was reinvested.

Palace of the Governor-General (Norodom Palace) in Saigon, about 1875, photo by Émile Gsell.

Saigon became a principal port in Southeast Asia and rivaled the British port of Singapore as the region’s busiest commercial center. By 1937, Saigon was the sixth busiest port in the entire French Empire. French settlers further added their influence on the colony by constructing buildings in the form of Beaux-Arts and added French-influenced landmarks such as the Hanoi Opera House and Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica.

Economically, the French did not develop Laos to the scale that it did Vietnam, and many Vietnamese were recruited to work in the government in Laos instead of the Laotian people, causing conflicts between local populations and the government. Economic development occurred very slowly in Laos and was initially fueled primarily by rice cultivation and distilleries producing rice alcohol.
Although tin mining and coffee cultivation began in the 1920s, the country’s isolation and difficult terrain meant that Laos largely remained economically unviable to the French. More than 90% of the Lao remained subsistence farmers, growing just enough surplus produce to sell for cash to pay their taxes.

Originally serving as a buffer territory for France between its more important Vietnamese colonies and Siam, Cambodia was not initially seen as an economically important area. The colonial government’s budget originally relied largely on tax collections in Cambodia as its main source of revenue and Cambodians paid the highest taxes per capita in French Indochina. Poor and sometimes unstable administration in the early years of French rule in Cambodia meant infrastructure and urbanization grew at a much slower rate than in Vietnam, and traditional social structures in villages remained in place. However, as French rule strengthened after the Franco-Siamese War, development slowly began in Cambodia, where rice and pepper crops allowed the economy to grow. As the French automobile industry grew, rubber plantations like the ones in Cochinchina and Annam were built and run by French investors. Economic diversification continued throughout the 1920s, when corn and cotton crops were also grown. Despite economic expansion and investment, Cambodians still continued to pay high taxes and in 1916, protests broke out demanding for tax cuts.

Infrastructure and public works were developed to some extent under French rule, and roads and railroads were constructed in Cambodian territory. Most notably, a railway connected Phnom Penh with Battambang on the Thai border.
Industry was later developed but was primarily designed to process raw materials for local use or for export. As in nearby British Burma and British Malaya, foreigners dominated the work force of the economy due to French discrimination that kept Cambodians from holding important economic positions. Many Vietnamese were recruited to work on rubber plantations and later immigrants played key roles in the colonial economy as fisherman and businessmen. Chinese Cambodians continued to be largely involved in commerce but higher positions were given to the French.

Effects of Colonial Rule

Whatever economic progress was made under the French, it benefited the French and the small class of the local wealthy created by the colonial regime. The masses were deprived of economic and social benefits. Through the construction of irrigation works, chiefly in the Mekong delta, the area of land devoted to rice cultivation quadrupled between 1880 and 1930. During the same period, however, the individual peasant’s rice consumption decreased without the substitution of other foods. The new lands were not distributed among the landless and the peasants but were sold to the highest bidder or given away at nominal prices to Vietnamese collaborators and French speculators. These policies created a new class of Vietnamese landlords and a class of landless tenants who worked the fields of the landlords for rents of up to 60 percent of the crop, which was sold by the landlords at the Saigon export market. The mounting export figures for rice resulted not only from the increase in cultivable land but also from the growing exploitation of the peasantry.

The peasants who owned their land were rarely better off than the landless tenants. Peasants continually lost their land to the large owners because they were unable to repay loans given them by the landlords and other money lenders at exorbitant interest rates. As a result, the large landowners of Cochinchina (less than 3 percent of the total number of landowners) owned 45 percent of the land, while the small peasants (who accounted for about 70 percent of the owners) owned only about 15 percent of the land. The number of landless families in Vietnam before World War II was estimated at half of the population.

The French had imposed high taxes to finance their ambitious program of public works and recruited forced labor with no protection against exploitation in the mines and rubber plantations, although the scandalous working conditions, the low salaries, and the lack of medical care were frequently attacked in the French Chamber of Deputies in Paris. The mild social legislation decreed in the late 1920s was never adequately enforced.

Apologists for the colonial regime claimed that French rule led to vast improvements in medical care, education, transport, and communications. The statistics kept by the French, however, appear to cast doubt on such assertions. In 1939, for example, no more than 15 percent of all school-age children received any kind of schooling and about 80 percent of the population was illiterate, in contrast to precolonial times when the majority of the people possessed some degree of literacy. With more than 20 million inhabitants in 1939, Vietnam had one university with fewer than 700 students. Medical care was well organized for the French in the cities, but in 1939 there were only two physicians for every 100,000 Vietnamese.

27.4.4: Resistance to French Rule

The first wave of resistance to French rule emerged in Indochina shortly after France colonized the region, with particularly active nationalist movements in Vietnam, more limited and mostly elite-based opposition in Cambodia, and fragmented, often ethnically-divided rebellions in Laos. 

Learning Objective

Evaluate instances of resistance to French rule

Key Points

• Nationalist
  sentiments emerged in French Indochina shortly after colonial rule was
  established. In 1885, Phan Dinh Phung led a rebellion against the colonizing power. The Can
  Vuong movement, which sought to expel the French and install the boy Emperor
  Ham Nghi at the head of an independent Vietnam, initiated the revolt. The insurrection in Annam spread and flourished in 1886, reached
  its climax the following year, and gradually faded out by 1889. The Can Vuong
  movement was the first resistance movement that saw all of Vietnamese
  society, royalty, scholar-gentry, and peasantry, working together against the
  French.
• At
  the beginning of the 20th century, two parallel movements emerged. The Dong Du
  (“Go East”) Movement led by Phan Boi Chau planned to send Vietnamese students to Japan to learn modern skills so in the
  future they could lead a successful armed revolt against the French. Duy Tan (“Modernization”) led by Phan Chau
  Trinh favored a non-violent struggle to gain independence, stressing education for the masses and modernization. The
  French suppressed both movements and Vietnamese revolutionaries began to radicalize.
• Phan
  Boi Chau created the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi in Guangzhou, planning armed
  resistance against the French. In 1925, French agents captured him in Shanghai
  and spirited him to Vietnam. Due to his popularity, Chau was spared from
  execution. In 1927, the
  Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party) and the party launched the armed Yen Bai
  mutiny in 1930 in Tonkin, which resulted in
  many leaders captured and executed by the guillotine.
• In
  1885, Si Votha, half brother of king Norodom and contender for the throne, led
  a rebellion to dispose of the French-backed Norodom after returning from
  exile in Siam. Gathering support from opponents of Norodom and the French, Si
  Votha led a rebellion that was primarily concentrated in the jungles of
  Cambodia and the city of Kampot. French forces later aided Norodom to defeat Si
  Votha. Unlike
  in Vietnam, Cambodian nationalism remained relatively quiet during much of
  French rule, although Khmer nationalism began to emerge outside of Cambodia. 
• In
  1901, a revolt broke out in the south of Laos among
  groups of Lao Theung led by Ong Kaeo. The revolt challenged
  French control over Laos and was not fully suppressed until 1910. Between
  1899 and 1910, political unrest in the northern Phongsali Province occurred as
  local hill tribe chiefs challenged French rule and assimilation policies being
  carried out in the highlands. Although the revolt initially
  started as a resistance against French influence, it focused on stopping French suppression
  of the opium trade.
• Instability
  continued in the north of Laos in 1919.  Hmong groups, the chief
  opium producers in Indochina, revolted against French taxation and special
  status given to the Lao Loum, minorities in the highlands, in a
  conflict known as the War of the Insane. After the revolt, the French government granted
  Hmongs partial autonomy in the Xiangkhouang Province.

Key Terms

War of the Insane

A Hmong revolt against taxation in the French colonial administration in Indochina lasting from 1918 to 1921. Pa Chay Vue, the leader of the revolt, regularly climbed trees to receive military orders from heaven. The French granted the Hmong a special status in 1920, effectively ending the conflict.

Yen Bai mutiny

An uprising of Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army in 1930 in collaboration with civilian supporters who were members of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party).

Can Vuong
movement

A large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule. Its objective was to expel the French and install the boy emperor Hàm Nghi as the leader of an independent Vietnam.

Nationalist Movements in Vietnam

Nationalist sentiments emerged in French Indochina shortly after the colonial rule was established. By the mid-1880s, French troops established a firm grip over the northern region of Vietnam and in 1885, Phan Dinh Phung, a prominent imperial court official, led a rebellion against the colonizing power. The Can Vuong
movement, which sought to expel the French and install the boy Emperor Ham Nghi at the head of an independent Vietnam, initiated the revolt in 1885 when Ton That Thuyet, another court official, launched a surprise attack against the colonial forces after a diplomatic confrontation with the French. Thuyet took Ham Nghi northwards to the Tan So mountain base near the border with Laos after the attack failed. 

The Can Vuong movement lacked a coherent national structure and consisted mainly of regional leaders who attacked French troops in their own provinces. It initially prospered but failed after the French recovered from the surprise of the insurgency and poured troops into Annam from bases in Tonkin and Cochinchina. The insurrection in Annam spread and flourished in 1886, reached its climax the following year, and gradually faded out by 1889.
The Can Vuong movement was the first resistance movement that saw all of Vietnamese society, royalty, scholar-gentry, and peasantry, working together against the French. However, although there were some 50 resistance groups, they lacked collaboration and unifying military authority. Actions taken by the resistance were never national, but the narratives of their struggle against foreign domination were passed down to the next generations.

At the beginning of the 20th century, two parallel movements emerged. The Dong Du (“Go East”) Movement started in 1905 by Phan Boi Chau. Chau’s plan was to send Vietnamese students to Japan to learn modern skills so that in the future they could lead a successful armed revolt against the French. With Prince Cuong De, he started two organizations in Japan: Duy Tan Hoi and Viet Nam Cong Hien Hoi. Due to French diplomatic pressure, Japan later deported Chau. A second movement, Duy Tan (“Modernization”), led by Phan Chau Trinh, favored a peaceful, non-violent struggle for independence. It stressed education for the masses, modernizing the country, fostering understanding and tolerance between the French and the Vietnamese, and peaceful transitions of power. 

The French suppressed both movements and
Vietnamese revolutionaries began to turn to more radical paths, particularly

after witnessing revolutionaries in action in China and Russia. Phan Boi Chau created the
Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi in Guangzhou, planning armed resistance against the French. In 1925, French agents captured him in Shanghai and spirited him to Vietnam. Due to his popularity, Chau was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In 1927, the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party), modeled after the Kuomintang in China, was founded. The party launched the armed Yen Bai mutiny in 1930 in Tonkin, which resulted in its chairman Nguyen Thai Hoc and many other leaders captured and executed by the guillotine.

Resistance in Cambodia

The first decades of French rule in Cambodia included numerous reforms into Cambodian politics, including the reduction of the monarch’s power. In 1884, the governor of Cochinchina, Charles Anthoine François Thomson, attempted to overthrow the monarch and establish full French control over Cambodia by sending a small force to the royal palace in Phnom Penh. The movement was largely unsuccessful as the governor-general of French Indochina prevented full colonization due to possible conflicts with Cambodians and the monarch became a mere figurehead. In 1885, Si Votha, half brother of king Norodom and contender for the throne, led a rebellion to dispose of the French-backed Norodom after coming back from exile in Siam. Gathering support from opponents of Norodom and the French, Si Votha led a rebellion that was primarily concentrated in the jungles of Cambodia and the city of Kampot. French forces later aided Norodom to defeat Si Votha under agreements that the Cambodian population be disarmed and acknowledge the resident-general as the highest power in the protectorate.

King Norodom, the monarch who initiated overtures to France to make Cambodia its protectorate in 1863 to escape Siamese pressure

In 1904, King Norodom died and the French passed the succession to Norodom’s brother Sisowath, whose branch of the royal family was more submissive and less nationalistic. Norodom was viewed as responsible for the constant Cambodian revolts against French rule. Norodom’s favorite son Prince Yukanthor, his natural successor, had on one of his trips to Europe stirred up public opinion about French colonial brutalities in occupied Cambodia.

Unlike in Vietnam, Cambodian nationalism remained relatively quiet during much of French rule. The population had limited access to education, which kept literacy rates low and prevented nationalist movements like those in Vietnam from widely circulating their message. However, among the French-educated Cambodian elite, the Western ideas of democracy and self-rule and French restoration of monuments such as Angkor Wat created a sense of pride and awareness of Cambodia’s powerful status in the past. Cambodian students resented the favored status of the minority Vietnamese. In 1936, Son Ngoc Than and Pach Choeun began publishing Nagaravatta (Notre cité),  a French language anti-colonial and at times, anti-Vietnamese newspaper. Minor independence movements, especially the Khmer Issarak, began to develop in 1940 among Cambodians in Thailand who feared their actions would have led to punishment if they operated in their homeland.

Resistance in Laos

In 1901, a revolt broke out in the south of Laos in the Bolaven Plateau among groups of Lao Theung led by Ong Kaeo, a self-proclaimed “holy man” who led a messianic cult. The revolt challenged French control over Laos and was not fully suppressed until 1910 when Ong Kaeo was killed. His successor Ong Kommadam became an early leader in the Lao nationalist movement.

Between 1899 and 1910, political unrest in the northern Phongsali Province occurred as local hill tribe chiefs challenged French rule and assimilation policies being carried out in the highlands. At the height of the revolt, the unrest spread to the highlands of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and was largely concentrated among the minority groups of the Khmu and Hmong. Although the revolt initially started as a resistance against French influence and tightening of administration, it later focused on stopping the French suppression of the opium trade.

Instability continued in the north of Laos in 1919 when Hmong groups, the chief opium producers in Indochina, revolted against French taxation and special status given to the Lao Loum, minorities in the highlands, in a conflict known as the War of the Insane. Hmong rebels claimed that both Lao and French officials treated them as subordinate and uncivilized groups. They were defeated in 1921. After the revolt, the French government granted Hmongs partial autonomy in the Xiangkhouang Province.

26.3: The Mexican War of Independence

26.3.1: The Effect of Events in Europe on Mexico

Learning Objective

Analyze the effect events in Europe had on Mexico in 1808

Key Points

• Events in Spain during the Peninsular War had profound effects on Spanish America, leading to numerous successful independence movements.
• In 1808, a year after Napoleon invaded Portugal, the French turned on Spain, a previous ally, which led to a political crisis.
• Napoleon forced the abdication of the Spanish king, Charles IV, and replaced him with his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, who ruled Spain for five years.
• Numerous revolts occurred throughout Spain in response, causing confusion and crisis.
• A number of juntas (councils) were set up Spain to fill the power vacuum and lead the charge against the French.
• This crisis also resulted in a shift in leadership over the colonies in the Americas, where juntas were also set up. Some of these were loyal to Charles IV’s son, Ferdinand VII, and some pushed for independence, which was achieved in 1821.

Key Terms

juntas

A Spanish and Portuguese term for a civil deliberative or administrative council. In English, it predominantly refers to the government of an authoritarian state run by high-ranking officers of a military. The term literally means “union” and often refers to the army, navy, and air force commanders taking over the power of the president, prime minister, king, or other non-military leader.

Spanish Constitution of 1812

Established on March 19, 1812, by the Cádiz Cortes, Spain’s first national sovereign assembly. It established the principles of universal male suffrage, national sovereignty, constitutional monarchy, and freedom of the press, and supported land reform and free enterprise. This constitution, one of the most liberal of its time, was effectively Spain’s first.

Peninsular War

A military conflict between Napoleon’s empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Peninsular War and the Crisis in Spain

The Peninsular War (1807–14) was a military conflict between Napoleon’s empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war started when French and Spanish armies invaded and occupied Portugal in 1807, and escalated in 1808 when France turned on Spain, its ally until then. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation, significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare.

Spain had been allied with France against the United Kingdom since the Second Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1796. However, after the defeat of the combined Spanish and French fleets by the British at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, cracks began to appear in the alliance, with Spain preparing to invade France from the south after the outbreak of the War of the Fourth Coalition. In 1806, Spain readied for an invasion in case of a Prussia victory, but Napoleon’s rout of the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstaedt caused Spain to back down. However, Spain continued to resent the loss of its fleet at Trafalgar and the fact that they were forced to join the Continental System. Nevertheless, the two allies agreed to partition Portugal, a long-standing British trading partner and ally that refused to join the Continental System. Napoleon was fully aware of the disastrous state of Spain’s economy and administration and its political fragility, and felt it had little value as an ally. He insisted on positioning French troops in Spain to prepare for a French invasion of Portugal, but once this was done, he continued to move additional French troops into Spain without any sign of an advance into Portugal. The presence of French troops on Spanish soil was extremely unpopular in Spain, resulting in the Mutiny of Aranjuez and the abdication of Charles IV of Spain in March 1808.

Charles IV hoped that Napoleon, who by this time had 100,000 troops stationed in Spain, would help him regain the throne. However, Napoleon refused to help Charles and refused to recognize his son, Ferdinand VII, as the new king. Instead, he succeeded in pressuring both Charles and Ferdinand to cede the crown to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The head of the French forces in Spain, Marshal Joachim Murat, meanwhile pressed for the former Prime Minister of Spain, Manuel de Godoy, whose role in inviting the French forces into Spain had led to the mutiny of Aranjuez, to be set free. The failure of the remaining Spanish government to stand up to Murat caused popular anger. On May 2, 1808, Murat ordered the younger son of Charles IV, the Infante Francisco de Paula, to leave Spain for France, leading to a widespread rebellion in the streets of Madrid.

The Council of Castile, the main organ of central government in Spain under Charles IV, was now in Napoleon’s control. However, due to the popular anger at French rule, it quickly lost authority outside the population centers that were directly French-occupied. To oppose this occupation, former regional governing institutions, such as the Parliament of Aragon and the Board of the Principality of Asturias, resurfaced in parts of Spain; elsewhere, juntas (councils) were created to fill the power vacuum and lead the struggle against French imperial forces. Provincial juntas began to coordinate their actions; regional juntas were formed to oversee the provincial ones. The move, however, led to more confusion, since there was no central authority and most juntas did not recognize the presumptuous claim of others to represent the monarchy as a whole. The Junta of Seville, in particular, claimed authority over the overseas empire.

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain

During the Peninsular War, Napoleon forced the abdication of the Spanish King and replaced him with his brother, Joseph Bonaparte.

Painting of Joseph Bonaparte.

Effect on Spanish America

This impasse was resolved through negotiations between the juntas and the Council of Castile, which led to the creation of a “Supreme Central and Governmental Junta of Spain and the Indies” on September 25, 1808. It was agreed that the traditional kingdoms of the peninsula would send two representatives to this Central Junta, and that the overseas kingdoms would send one representative each. These “kingdoms” were defined as “the viceroyalties of New Spain [Mexico], Peru, New Granada, and Buenos Aires, and the independent captaincies general of the island of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Chile, Province of Venezuela, and the Philippines.”

This scheme was criticized for providing unequal representation to the overseas territories. The dissolution of the Supreme Junta on January 29, 1810, because of the reverses suffered after the Battle of Ocaña by the Spanish forces paid with Spanish American money set off another wave of juntas in the Americas. French forces had taken over southern Spain and forced the Supreme Junta to seek refuge in the island-city of Cadiz. The Junta replaced itself with a smaller, five-man council, the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies. Most Spanish Americans saw no reason to recognize a rump government that was under the threat of capture by the French at any moment, and began to work for the creation of local juntas to preserve the region’s independence from the French. Junta movements were successful in New Granada (Colombia), Venezuela, Chile, and Río de la Plata (Argentina).

The creation of juntas in Spanish America, such as the Junta Suprema de Caracas on April 19, 1810, set the stage for the fighting that would afflict the region for the next decade and a half. Political fault lines appeared and often caused military conflict. Although the juntas claimed to carry out their actions in the name of the deposed king, Ferdinand VII, their creation provided an opportunity for people who favored outright independence to publicly and safely promote their agenda. The proponents of independence called themselves patriots, a term which eventually was generally applied to them.

The Spanish Constitution of 1812 adopted by the Cortes de Cadiz served as the basis for independence in New Spain (Mexico) and Central America, since in both regions it was a coalition of conservative and liberal royalist leaders who led the establishment of new states. The restoration of the Spanish Constitution and representative government was enthusiastically welcomed in New Spain and Central America. Elections were held, local governments formed, and deputies sent to the Cortes. Among liberals, however, there was fear that the new regime would not last, and conservatives and the Church worried that the new liberal government would expand its reforms and anti-clerical legislation. This climate of instability created the conditions for the two sides to forge an alliance. This coalesced towards the end of 1820 behind Agustín de Iturbide, a colonel in the royal army, who at the time was assigned to destroy the guerrilla forces led by Vicente Guerrero.

In January 1821, Iturbide began peace negotiations with Guerrero, suggesting they unite to establish an independent New Spain. The simple terms that Iturbide proposed became the basis of the Plan of Iguala: the independence of New Spain (now called the Mexican Empire) with Ferdinand VII or another Bourbon as emperor; the retention of the Catholic Church as the official state religion and the protection of its existing privileges; and the equality of all New Spaniards, whether immigrants or native-born. The resulting Treaty of Córdoba, signed on August 24, kept all existing laws, including the 1812 Constitution, in force until a new constitution for Mexico was written. O’Donojú became part of the provisional governing junta until his death on October 8. Both the Spanish Cortes and Ferdinand VII rejected the Treaty of Córdoba, and the final break with the mother country came on May 19, 1822, when the Mexican Congress conferred the throne on Itrubide.

26.3.2: Spanish Rule in Mexico

Learning Objective

Describe Spanish rule in Mexico

Key Points

• New Spain, a colonial kingdom ruled by Spain, was founded after the Spanish conquest over the Aztec people in the 16th century.
• Along with the territory of what is now Mexico, it also included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, the southwestern United States as well as Florida, and the Philippines.
• The monarch of Spain had tremendous power and control over New Spain including property rights, although much of the law was made and administered by local councils, elected positions limited to Spaniards.
• New Spain had a hierarchical racial classification system, which not only determined social class, but also had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation.
• The racial system ranked Spanish-born Spaniards at the top, then American-born Spaniards (Crioles), then Mestizo (mixed Spaniard and Indian), then indigenous Indian and African.
• The Creoles, Mestizos, and Indians often disagreed, but all resented the small minority of Spaniards who had all the political power, leading eventually to the Mexican independence movement.

Key Terms

Cabildos

A Spanish colonial and early post-colonial administrative council which governed a municipality. They were sometimes appointed, sometimes elected, but always considered representative of all land-owning heads of household (vecinos). 

New Spain

A colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and following additional conquests, it was made a viceroyalty in 1535. The first of four viceroyalties Spain created in the Americas, it comprised Mexico, Central America, much of the Southwestern and Central United States, and Spanish Florida as well as the Philippines, Guam, Mariana, and Caroline Islands.

El Dorado

The term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca native people of Colombia, who as an initiation rite covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends changed over time, evolving from a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally an empire. In pursuit of the legend, Spanish conquistadors and numerous others searched Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Guyana and northern Brazil for the city and its fabulous king. In the course of these explorations, much of northern South America, including the Amazon River, was mapped.

Mestizos

A person of mixed race, especially the offspring of a Spaniard and an American Indian.

New Spain

As a colony, Mexico was part of the much larger Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, the southwestern United States as well as Florida, and the Philippines. Hernán Cortés conquered the great empire of the Aztecs and established New Spain as the largest and most important Spanish colony. During the 16th century, Spain focused on conquering areas with dense populations that produced Pre-Columbian civilizations, because such populations had a disciplined labor force and people to evangelize with the Christian faith.

Territories populated by nomadic peoples were harder to conquer, and although the Spanish explored much of North America, seeking the fabled “El Dorado,” they made no concerted effort to settle the northern desert regions in what is now the United States until the end of 16th century (Santa Fe, 1598). The northern area of Mexico, a region of nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous populations, was thus not generally conducive to dense settlements, but the discovery of silver in Zacatecas in the 1540s drew settlement there to exploit the mines. Silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain and transformed the global economy.

Although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. The monarch had sweeping power in the overseas territories. According to historian Clarence Haring:

The king possessed not only the sovereign right but the property rights; he was the absolute proprietor, the sole political head of his American dominions. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him. It was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the [Spanish] New World was achieved.

New Spain lost parts of its territory to other European powers and independence, but the core area remained under Spanish control until 1821, when it achieved independence as the Mexican Empire— when the latter dissolved, it became modern Mexico and Central America. It developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, and economic organization.

Laws were introduced that created a balance between local jurisdiction (the Cabildos) and the Crown, whereby upper administrative offices were closed to natives, even those of pure Spanish blood. 

Racial Divides

The population of New Spain was divided into four main groups or classes. The group a person belonged to was determined by racial background and birthplace. Created by Hispanic elites, this hierarchical system of race classification (sistema de castas), was based on the principle that people varied due to their birth, color, race and origin of ethnic types. The system of castas was more than socio-racial classification. It had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation. Both the Spanish colonial state and the Church required more tax and tribute payments from those of lower socio-racial categories. Related to Spanish ideas about purity of blood (which historically also related to its reconquest of Spain from the Moors), the colonists established a caste system in Latin America by which a person’s socio-economic status generally correlated with race or racial mix in the known family background, or simply on phenotype (physical appearance) if the family background was unknown. 

From the colonial period on when the Spanish imposed control, many wealthy persons and high government officials were of peninsular (Iberian) and/or European background, while African or indigenous ancestry, or dark skin, generally was correlated with inferiority and poverty. The “whiter” the heritage a person could claim, the higher in status they could claim; conversely, darker features meant less opportunity.

The most powerful group was the Spaniards, people born in Spain and sent across the Atlantic to rule the colony. Only Spaniards could hold high-level jobs in the colonial government.

The second group, called Creoles, were those of Spanish background born in Mexico. Many Creoles were prosperous landowners and merchants, but even the wealthiest had little say in government.

The third group, the Mestizos, were people who had some Spanish ancestors and some Indian ancestors. The word Mestizo means “mixed.” Mestizos had a much lower position and were looked down upon by both the Spaniards and the Creoles, who held the racist belief that people of pure European background were superior to everyone else.

The poorest, most marginalized group in New Spain was the Indians, descendants of pre-Columbian peoples. They had less power and endured harsher conditions than other groups. Indians were forced to work as laborers on the ranches and farms (called haciendas) of the Spaniards and Creoles.

In addition to the four main groups, there were also black Africans in colonial Mexico. They were imported as laborers and shared the low status of the Indians. They made up about 4% to 5% of the population, and their mixed-race descendants, called mulattoes, eventually grew to represent about 9%.

De Mestizo y d’India; Coyote by Miguel Cabrera, 1763.

A painting of a Mestizo man with his Indian wife and their children. The child of a Mestizo and an Indian is called a Coyote. The hierarchical system of race classification created by the Spanish during colonial rule had Spaniards born in Spain at the top and indigenous Indians and Africans at the bottom.

A painting of a Mestizo man with his Indian wife, along with their children, one of which is riding a donkey.

Economy and Culture

From an economic point of view, New Spain was administered principally for the benefit of the Empire and its military and defensive efforts. Mexico provided more than half of the Empire taxes and supported the administration of all North and Central America. Competition with Spain was discouraged; for example, cultivation of grapes and olives, introduced by Cortez himself, was banned out of fear that these crops would compete with Spain’s.

Education was encouraged by the Crown from the very beginning, and Mexico boasts the first primary school (Texcoco, 1523), first university, the University of Mexico (1551) and the first printing press (1524) of the Americas. Indigenous languages were studied mainly by the religious orders during the first centuries, and became official languages in the so-called Republic of Indians, only to be outlawed and ignored after independence by the prevailing Spanish-speaking creoles.

The syncretism between indigenous and Spanish cultures gave rise to many of nowadays Mexican staple and world-famous cultural traits like tequila (since the 16th century), mariachi (18th), jarabe (17th), churros (17th) and the highly prized Mexican cuisine, fruit of the mixture of European and indigenous ingredients and techniques.

The Creoles, Mestizos, and Indians often disagreed, but all resented the small minority of Spaniards who had all the political power. By the early 1800s, many native-born Mexicans believed that Mexico should become independent of Spain, following the example of the United States. The man who finally touched off the revolt against Spain was the Catholic priest Father Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla. He is remembered today as the Father of Mexican Independence.

26.3.3: Indigenous Efforts Against Colonialism

Learning Objective

Examine some of the indigenous uprisings against the Spanish

Key Points

• After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish created the colony and kingdom of New Spain, which placed the indigenous populations at the bottom of the racial hierarchy.
• Territories populated by indigenous nomadic peoples were harder to conquer, and once the natives got hold of horses, many populations evaded Spanish rule for much of the colonial period.
• Other natives in densely populated areas suffered continual abuse and oppression under the Spaniards, leading to several revolts.
• The first revolt, named the Mixtón war, pitted the viceroy of New Spain, Don Antonio de Mendoza, against the Caxcanes Indians, who began a rebellion in 1440.
• After two years of fighting, with the natives repeatedly repelling the Spanish army, the stronghold of Mixtón fell to the Spaniards and the rebellion was over.
• Skirmishes continued, and by 1550, another war broke out against the Chichimeca Indians. It lasted for forty years and led the Spanish to take an approach of assimilation rather than enslavement and abuse.

Key Terms

Chichimeca War

A military conflict between Spanish colonizers and their Indian allies against a confederation of Chichimeca Indians. It was the longest and most expensive conflict between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of New Spain in the history of the colony.

assimilation

The process by which a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs. 

Mixtón War

A war fought from 1540 until 1542 between the Caxcanes and other semi-nomadic indigenous people of the area of northwestern Mexico against Spanish invaders, including their Aztec and Tlaxcalan allies.

Indigenous Uprisings in New Spain

After the conquest of central Mexico, several major Indian revolts challenged Spanish rule. The first was in 1541, the Mixtón war, in which the viceroy himself, Don Antonio de Mendoza, led an army against the uprising by Caxcanes. The other was the 1680 Pueblo revolt, in which Indians in 24 settlements in New Mexico expelled the Spanish who left for Texas, an exile lasting a decade. The Chichimeca war lasted over fifty years, 1550-1606, between the Spanish and various indigenous groups of northern New Spain, particularly in silver mining regions and the transportation trunk lines. Non-sedentary or semi-sedentary Northern Indians were difficult to control once they acquired horses. In 1616, the Tepehuan revolted against the Spanish, but were quickly suppressed by the Spanish. The Tarahumara Indians were in revolt in the mountains of Chihuahua for several years. In 1670 Chichimecas invaded Durango, and the governor, Francisco González, abandoned its defense.

In the southern area of New Spain, the Tzeltal Maya and other indigenous groups, including the Tzotzil and Chol, revolted in 1712. It was a multiethnic revolt sparked by religious issues in several communities. In 1704, viceroy Francisco Fernández de la Cueva suppressed a rebellion of the Pima Indians in Nueva Vizcaya.

Mixtón War

The Mixtón War was fought from 1540 until 1542 between the Caxcanes and other semi-nomadic indigenous people of the area of northwestern Mexico against Spanish invaders, including Aztec and Tlaxcalan allies. The war was named after Mixtón, a hill in the southern part of Zacatecas state in Mexico that served as an Indigenous stronghold. 

Although other indigenous groups also fought against the Spanish in the Mixtón War, the Caxcanes were the “heart and soul” of the resistance. The Caxcanes lived in the northern part of the present-day Mexican state of Jalisco, in southern Zacatecas and Aquascalientes. They are often considered part of the Chichimeca, a generic term used by the Spaniards and Aztecs for all the nomadic and semi-nomadic Native Americans living in the deserts of northern Mexico. However, the Caxcanes seem to have been sedentary, depending upon agriculture for their livelihood and living in permanent towns and settlements.

The first contact of the Caxcan and other indigenous peoples of the northwestern Mexico with the Spanish was in 1529 when Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán set forth from Mexico City with 300-400 Spaniards and 5,000 to 8,000 Azteca and Tlaxcalan allies on a march through Nayarit, Jalisco, Durango, Sinaloa, and Zacatecas. Over a six-year period, Guzmán, brutal even by the standards of the day, killed, tortured, and enslaved thousands of Indians. Guzmán’s policy was to “terrorize the natives with often unprovoked killing, torture, and enslavement.” Guzmán and his lieutenants founded towns and Spanish settlements in the region, called Nueva Galicia, including Guadalajara in or near the homeland of the Caxcanes. But the Spaniards encountered increased resistance as they moved further from the complex hierarchical societies of Central Mexico and attempted to force Indians into servitude through the encomienda system.

In Spring 1540, the Caxcanes and their allies struck back, emboldened perhaps by the fact that Governor Francisco Vásquez de Coronado had taken more than 1,600 Spaniards and Amerindian allies from the region northward with him on his expedition to what would become the southwestern United States. The province was thus bereft of many of its most competent soldiers. The spark which set off the war was the arrest of 18 rebellious Indian leaders and the hanging of nine of them in mid-1540. Later in the same year, the Indians rose up to kill, roast, and eat the encomendero Juan de Arze. Spanish authorities also became aware that the Indians were participating in “devilish” dances. After killing two Catholic priests, many Indians fled the encomiendas and took refuge in the mountains, especially on the hill fortress of Mixtón. Acting Governor Cristobal de Oñate led a Spanish and Indian force to quell the rebellion. The Caxcanes killed a delegation of one priest and ten Spanish soldiers. Oñate attempted to storm Mixtón, but the Indians on the summit repelled his attack.

The Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza called upon the experienced conquistador Pedro de Alvarado to assist in putting down the revolt. Alvarado declined to await reinforcements and attacked Mixton in June 1541 with 400 Spaniards and an unknown number of Indian allies. He was met by an estimated 15,000 Indians under Tenamaztle and Don Diego, a Zacateco Indian. The first attack of the Spanish was repulsed with ten Spaniards and many Indian allies killed. Subsequent attacks by Alvarado were also unsuccessful and on June 24 he was crushed when a horse fell on him.

The Spanish authorities were now thoroughly alarmed and feared that the revolt would spread. They assembled a force of 450 Spaniards and 30 to 60 thousand Aztec, Tlaxcalan and other Indians and under Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza invaded the land of the Caxcanes. With his overwhelming force, Mendoza captured the city of Nochistlan and Tenamaztle, but the Indian leader later escaped. Tenamaztle would remain at large as a guerrilla until 1550. In early 1542 the stronghold of Mixtón fell to the Spaniards and the rebellion was over. 

The aftermath of the Indians’ defeat was that “thousands were dragged off in chains to the mines, and many of the survivors (mostly women and children) were transported from their homelands to work on Spanish farms and haciendas.” By the viceroy’s order, men, women, and children were seized and executed, some by cannon fire, some torn apart by dogs, and others stabbed. The reports of the excessive violence against civilian Indians caused the Council of the Indies to undertake a secret investigation into the conduct of the viceroy.

Mixtón War

Viceroy don Antonio de Mendoza and Tlaxcalan Indians battle with the Caxcanes in the Mixtón war, 1541-42 in Nueva Galicia.

An indigenous painting depicting the Mixton War. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and Tlaxcalan Indians battle with the Caxcanes.

Chichimeca War

The Chichimeca War (1550–90) was a military conflict between Spanish colonizers and their Indian allies against a confederation of Chichimeca Indians. It was the longest and most expensive conflict between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples of New Spain in the history of the colony.

The Chichimeca wars began eight years after the Mixtón War. It can be considered a continuation of the rebellion as the fighting did not halt in the intervening years. The war was fought in the Bajío region known as La Gran Chichimeca, specifically in the Mexican states of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosí.

The conflict proved much more difficult and enduring than the Spanish anticipated. The Chichimecas seemed primitive and unorganized but proved a many-headed hydra. Although the Spanish often attacked and defeated bands of Chichimecas, Spanish military successes had little impact on other independent groups who continued the war. The increase in number of Spanish soldiers in the Gran Chichimeca was not entirely favorable to the war effort as the soldiers often supplemented their income by slaving, thus reinforcing the animosity of the Chichimeca. Moreover, the Spanish were short of soldiers, often staffing their presidios with only three Spaniards.

As the war continued unabated, it became clear that the Spanish policy of a war of fire and blood had failed. The royal treasury was emptied by the demands of the war. Churchmen and others who initially supported the war of fire and blood now questioned the policy. Mistreatment and enslavement of the Chichimeca by Spaniards was increasingly seen as the cause of the war. In 1574, the Dominicans, contrary to the Augustinians and Franciscans, declared that the Chichimeca War was unjust and caused by Spanish aggression. Thus, to end the conflict, the Spanish began to work toward an effective counterinsurgency policy which rewarded the Chichimeca for peaceful behavior while taking steps to assimilate them.

The Spanish policy that evolved to pacify the Chichimecas had four components: negotiation of peace agreements, converting Indians to Christianity with missionaries, resettling Native Americans allies to the frontier to serve as examples and role models, and providing food, other commodities, and tools to potentially hostile Indians to encourage them to become sedentary. This established the pattern of Spanish policy for the assimilation of Native Americans on their northern frontier. The principal components of the policy of peace by purchase would continue for nearly three centuries and would not be uniformly successful, as later threats from hostile Indians such as Apaches and Comanches would demonstrate.

26.3.4: The Hidalgo Revolt

Learning Objective

Explain the goals of the Hidalgo Revolt

Key Points

• Inspired by the American and French Revolutions, Mexican insurgents who sought independence saw an opportunity in 1808 as the king abdicated in Madrid and Spain was overwhelmed by war and occupation. 
• The rebellion began as a peasants’ and miners’ movement led by a local priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, for whom it is called the Hidalgo revolt.
• Hidalgo issued “The Cry of Dolores” on September 16, 1810, when he called upon the townspeople to revolt; the day is celebrated as Independence Day. 
• Shouting “Independence and death to the Spaniards!” Hidalgo marched on the capital with a very large, poorly organized army.
• Gathering more people along the way, Hidalgo’s army, supported by Spanish military captain Ignacio Allende, continued to march successfully while killing Spaniards until reaching Mexico City. Hidalgo then decided to retreat against the advice of Allende, a choice that has puzzled historians since.
• The retreat is considered a tactical error, leading to the suppression of the revolt and the execution of Hidalgo and Allende.

Key Terms

hagiographic

A biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader in any of the world’s spiritual traditions. The term, especially in contemporary times, is often used as a pejorative reference to biographies and histories whose authors are perceived to be uncritical of or reverential to their subject.

Ignacio Allende

A captain of the Spanish Army in Mexico who came to sympathize with the Mexican independence movement. He attended the secret meetings organized by Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez where the possibility of an independent New Spain was discussed. He fought along with Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in the first stage of the struggle, eventually succeeding him in leadership of the rebellion.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

A Mexican Roman Catholic priest and a leader of the Mexican War of Independence. 

Start of the Mexican War of Independence

The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict, the culmination of a political and social process which ended the rule of Spain in 1821 in the territory of New Spain. The war had its antecedent in the French invasion of Spain in 1808; it extended from the Grito de Dolores by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 16, 1810, to the entrance of the Army of the Three Guarantees led by Augustín de Iturbide to Mexico City on September 27, 1821. September 16 is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.

The movement for independence was inspired by the Age of Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions of the last part of the 18th century. By that time, the educated elite of New Spain began to reflect on the relations between Spain and its colonial kingdoms. Changes in the social and political structure occasioned by Bourbon reforms and a deep economic crisis in New Spain caused discomfort among the Creole (native-born) elite.

Political events in Europe had a decisive effect on events in most of Spanish America. In 1808, King Charles IV and Ferdinand VII abdicated in favor of French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, who left the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph Bonaparte. The same year, the ayuntamiento (city council) of Mexico City, supported by viceroy José de Iturrigaray, claimed sovereignty in the absence of the legitimate king. That led to a coup against the viceroy; when it was suppressed, the leaders of the movement were jailed.

Despite the defeat in Mexico City, small groups of conspirators met in other cities of New Spain to raise movements against colonial rule. In 1810, after being discovered, Querétaro conspirators chose to take up arms on September 16 in the company of peasants and indigenous inhabitants of Dolores (Guanajuato), who were called to action by the secular Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo, former rector of the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo.

The Hidalgo Revolt

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest and member of a group of educated Criollos in Querétaro, hosted secret gatherings in his home to discuss whether it was better to obey or to revolt against a tyrannical government, as he defined the Spanish colonial government in Mexico. Famed military leader Ignacio Allende was among the attendees. In 1810, Hidalgo concluded that a revolt was needed because of injustices against the poor of Mexico. By this time, Hidalgo was known for his achievements at the prestigious San Nicolás Obispo school in Valladolid (now Morelia), and later served there as rector. He also became known as a top theologian. When his older brother died in 1803, Hidalgo took over as priest for the town of Dolores.

Hidalgo was in Dolores on September 15, 1810, with other rebel leaders including commander Allende, when they learned their conspiracy had been discovered. Hidalgo ran to the church, calling for all the people to gather, where from the pulpit he called upon them to revolt. They all shouted in agreement. They were a comparatively small group and poorly armed with whatever was at hand, including sticks and rocks. On the morning of September 16, 1810, Hidalgo called upon the remaining locals who happened to be in the market, and again, from the pulpit, exhorted the people of Dolores to join him. Most did; Hidalgo had a mob of some 600 men within minutes. This became known as the Grito de Dolores or Cry of Dolores. 

Hidalgo’s Grito didn’t condemn the notion of monarchy or criticize the current social order in detail, but his opposition to the events in Spain and the current viceregal government was clearly expressed in his reference to bad government. The Grito also emphasized loyalty to the Catholic religion, a sentiment with which both Creoles and Peninsulares could sympathize. Hidalgo was met with an outpouring of support. Intellectuals, liberal priests and many poor people followed Hidalgo with enthusiasm. Hidalgo also permitted Indians and mestizos to join his war.

Hidalgo and Allende marched their little army through towns including San Miguel and Celaya, where the angry rebels killed all the Spaniards they found. Along the way they adopted the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe as their symbol and protector. When they reached the town of Guanajuato on September 28, they found Spanish forces barricaded inside the public granary. Among them were some “forced” Royalists, Creoles who had served and sided with the Spanish. By this time, the rebels numbered 30,000 and the battle was horrific. They killed more than 500 Spanish and creoles, and marched on toward Mexico City.

The Viceroy quickly organized a defense, sending out the Spanish general Torcuato Trujillo with 1,000 men, 400 horsemen, and 2 cannons, all that could be found on such short notice. On October 30, Hidalgo’s army encountered Spanish military resistance at the Battle of Monte de las Cruces, fought them, and achieved victory. When the cannons were captured by the rebels, the surviving Royalists retreated to the City.

Despite having the advantage, Hidalgo retreated against the counsel of Allende. This retreat on the verge of apparent victory has puzzled historians and biographers ever since. They generally believe that Hidalgo wanted to spare the numerous Mexican citizens in Mexico City from the inevitable sacking and plunder that would have ensued. His retreat is considered Hidalgo’s greatest tactical error.

Rebel survivors sought refuge in nearby provinces and villages. The insurgent forces planned a defensive strategy at a bridge on the Calderón River, pursued by the Spanish army. In January 1811, Spanish forces fought the Battle of the Bridge of Calderón and defeated the insurgent army, forcing the rebels to flee towards the United States-Mexican border, where they hoped to escape.

Unfortunately, they were intercepted by the Spanish army. Hidalgo and his remaining soldiers were captured in the state of Coahuila at the Wells of Baján (Norias de Baján). All of the rebel leaders were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, except for Mariano Abasolo. He was sent to Spain to serve a life sentence in prison. Allende, Jiménez, and Aldama were executed on June 26, 1811, shot in the back as a sign of dishonor. Hidalgo, as a priest, had to undergo a civil trial and review by the Inquisition. He was eventually stripped of his priesthood, found guilty, and executed on July 30. The heads of Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama, and Jiménez were preserved and hung from the four corners of the granary of Guanajuato as a warning to those who dared follow in their footsteps.

Following the execution of Hidalgo, José María Morelos took over leadership of the insurgency. He achieved the occupation of the cities of Oaxaca and Acapulco. In 1813, he convened the Congress of Chilpancingo to bring representatives together and, on November 6 of that year, the Congress signed the first official document of independence, known as the “Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America.” A long period of war followed. In 1815, Morelos was captured by Spanish colonial authorities, tried, and executed for treason.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

An expressionistic painting of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest who led a major revolt against the ruling Spaniards in Mexico.

An expressionistic painting of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest who led a major revolt against the ruling Spaniards in Mexico. It depicts him holding is left hand above his head and his right hand waving a red flag. He stand atop a group of men also waving red flags.

Legacy and Analysis of the Hidalgo Revolt

Father Hidalgo is today remembered as the Father of his Country, the great hero of Mexico’s War for Independence. There are numerous hagiographic biographies about him.

The truth about Hidalgo is more complex. His was the first serious insurrection on Mexican soil against Spanish authority, and his achievements with a poorly armed mob were significant. He was a charismatic leader and worked well with Allende despite their differences. But Hidalgo’s shortcomings have made historians ask, “What if?” After decades of abuse of Creoles and poor Mestizos, Hidalgo found that there was a vast well of resentment and hatred of the Spanish government. He provided the catalyst for Mexico’s poor to vent their anger on the hated Spaniards, but his “army” was impossible to manage or control.

His leadership decisions, most importantly his retreat from Mexico City, contributed to his defeat. Historians can only speculate about the result if Hidalgo had pushed into Mexico City in November 1810. Hidalgo appeared to be too proud or stubborn to listen to the sound military advice offered by Allende and others and press his advantage.

Finally, Hidalgo’s approval of the violent sacking and looting by his forces in Guanajuato and other towns alienated the group most vital to any independence movement: middle-class and wealthy Creoles like himself. They were needed to develop a new identity and government for Mexico, one that would allow Mexicans to break from Spain.

Hidalgo achieved mythic status after his death. His martyrdom was an example to others who picked up the fallen banner of freedom and independence. He influenced later fighters such as José María Morelos, Guadalupe Victoria, and others. Today, Hidalgo’s remains are held in a Mexico City monument known as “the Angel of Independence,” along with other Revolutionary heroes.

26.3.5: Winning Independence

Learning Objective

Discuss the state formed after Mexico achieved independence

Key Points

• After the suppression of the Hidalgo Revolt, the war for independence entered a new phase, which for the next six years was characterized by fighting by small, isolated guerrilla bands.
• In 1820, the conservative Creoles (American-born Spaniards) joined the rebellion, led by Agustín de Iturbide, a military captain who previously helped defeat Hidalgo’s army.
• The rebels formulated the “Plan of Iguala,” demanding an independent constitutional monarchy, a religious monopoly for the Catholic Church, and equality for Spaniards and Creoles. 
• On September 27, 1821, Iturbide and the viceroy signed the Treaty of Cordoba whereby Spain granted the demands and withdrew.
• On the night of May 18, 1822, a mass demonstration led by the Regiment of Celaya, which Iturbide had commanded during the war, marched through the streets and demanded their commander-in-chief to accept the throne; the following day, the congress declared Iturbide emperor of Mexico.

Key Terms

Agustín de Iturbide

A Mexican army general and politician. During the Mexican War of Independence, he built a successful political and military coalition that took control in Mexico City on September 27, 1821, decisively gaining independence for Mexico. After the secession of Mexico was secured, he was proclaimed President of the Regency in 1821. A year later, he was announced as the Constitutional Emperor of Mexico, reigning briefly from May 19, 1822, to March 19, 1823. He is credited as the original designer of the first Mexican flag.

Plan of Iguala

A revolutionary proclamation promulgated on February 24, 1821, in the final stage of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain. The Plan stated that Mexico was to become a constitutional monarchy whose sole official religion would be Roman Catholicism. The Peninsulares and Creoles of Mexico would enjoy equal political and social rights.

After the suppression of Hidalgo’s revolt, from 1815 to 1821 most fighting for independence from Spain was by small and isolated guerrilla bands. From these, two leaders arose: Guadalupe Victoria (born José Miguel Fernández y Félix) in Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca, both of whom gained allegiance and respect from their followers. Believing the situation under control, the Spanish viceroy issued a general pardon to every rebel who would lay down his arms. After ten years of civil war and the death of two of its founders, by early 1820 the independence movement was stalemated and close to collapse. The rebels faced stiff Spanish military resistance and the apathy of many of the most influential criollos.

In what was supposed to be the final government campaign against the insurgents, in December 1820 Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca sent a force led by a royalist criollo Colonel Agustín de Iturbide to defeat Guerrero’s army in Oaxaca. Iturbide, a native of Valladolid (now Morelia), gained renown for his zeal against Hidalgo’s and Morelos’s rebels during the early independence struggle. A favorite of the Mexican church hierarchy, Iturbide symbolized conservative criollo values; he was devoutly religious and committed to the defense of property rights and social privileges. He also resented his lack of promotion and failure to gain wealth.

Iturbide’s assignment to the Oaxaca expedition coincided with a successful military coup in Spain against the monarchy of Ferdinand VII. The coup leaders, part of an expeditionary force assembled to suppress the independence movements in the Americas, had turned against the monarchy. They compelled the reluctant Ferdinand to reinstate the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 that created a constitutional monarchy. When news of the liberal charter reached Mexico, Iturbide perceived it both as a threat to the status quo and a catalyst to rouse the criollos to gain control of Mexico. The tides turned when conservative Royalist forces in the colonies chose to rise up against the liberal regime in Spain; it was a total turnaround compared to their previous opposition to the peasant insurgency. After an initial clash with Guerrero’s forces, Iturbide assumed command of the royal army. At Iguala, he allied his formerly royalist force with Guerrero’s radical insurgents to discuss the renewed struggle for independence.

While stationed in the town of Iguala, Iturbide proclaimed three principles, or “guarantees,” for Mexican independence from Spain. Mexico would be an independent monarchy governed by King Ferdinand, another Bourbon prince, or some other conservative European prince; criollos would be given equal rights and privileges to peninsulares (those born in Spain); and the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico would retain its privileges and position as the established religion of the land. After convincing his troops to accept the principles, which were promulgated on February 24, 1821, as the Plan of Iguala, Iturbide persuaded Guerrero to join his forces in support of this conservative independence movement. A new army, the Army of the Three Guarantees, was placed under Iturbide’s command to enforce the Plan of Iguala. The plan was so broadly based that it pleased both patriots and loyalists. The goal of independence and the protection of Roman Catholicism brought together all factions.

Iturbide’s army was joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico. When the rebels’ victory became certain, the Viceroy resigned. On August 24, 1821, representatives of the Spanish crown and Iturbide signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which recognized Mexican independence under the Plan of Iguala. On September 27, 1821, the Army of the Three Guarantees entered Mexico City, and the following day Iturbide proclaimed the independence of the Mexican Empire, as New Spain would henceforth be called.

On the night of May 18, 1822, a mass demonstration led by the Regiment of Celaya, which Iturbide had commanded during the war, marched through the streets and demanded their commander-in-chief to accept the throne. The following day, the congress declared Iturbide emperor of Mexico. On October 31, 1822, Iturbide dissolved Congress and replaced it with a sympathetic junta.

Agustín de Iturbide

Oil painting of Agustín de Iturbide, leader of independence who was declared Emperor Augustín I, in 1822 following independence.

The painting depicts Agustín de Iturbide dressed in military garb.

After Independence: The Mexican Empire

After independence, Mexican politics were chaotic. The presidency changed hands 75 times in the next 55 years (1821–76).

The Spanish attempts to reconquer Mexico comprised episodes of war between Spain and the new nation. The designation mainly covers two periods: from 1821 to 1825 in Mexico’s waters, and a second period of two stages, including a Mexican plan to take the Spanish-held island of Cuba between 1826 and 1828, and the 1829 landing of Spanish General Isidro Barradas in Mexico to reconquer the territory. Although Spain never regained control of the country, it damaged the fledgling economy.

The newly independent nation was in dire straits after 11 years of the War of Independence. No plans or guidelines were established by the revolutionaries, so internal struggles for control of the government ensued. Mexico suffered a complete lack of funds to administer a country of over 4.5 million km², and faced the threats of emerging internal rebellions and of invasion by Spanish forces from their base in nearby Cuba.

Mexico now had its own government, but Iturbide quickly became a dictator. He even had himself proclaimed emperor of Mexico, copying the ceremony used by Napoleon when he proclaimed himself emperor of France. No one was allowed to speak against Iturbide. He filled his government with corrupt officials who became rich by taking bribes and making dishonest business deals.

In 1822, Mexico annexed the Federal Republic of Central America, which includes present-day Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and part of Chiapas.

26.3.6: The Archduke Maximilian in Mexico

Learning Objective

Critique Maximilian’s efforts to establish a state in Mexico

Key Points

• In 1862, the country was invaded by France to collect debts on which that the Juárez government had defaulted, but the larger purpose was to install a ruler under French control. 
• They chose a member of the Habsburg dynasty, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico, with support from the Catholic Church, conservative elements of the upper class, and some indigenous communities. 
• Although the French suffered an initial defeat (the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, now commemorated as the Cinco de Mayo holiday), the French eventually defeated the Mexican army and set Maximilian on the throne. 
• Despite the aims of the French and the conservatives in Mexico, Maximilian I was actually quite liberal and supported many of the reforms initiated by president Juárez, including land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote beyond the landholding class.
• Maximilian, too liberal for the conservatives and an enemy of the liberals because he represented the monarchy, had few friends in Mexico, despite his best efforts at positive reform.
• The United States, who never recognized Maximilian, after the end of the American Civil War pressured Napoleon III to withdraw the French from Mexico, thereby ending the Second Mexican Empire and ousting Maximilian.
• Maximilian chose to remain in Mexico rather than return to Europe and was captured and executed along with two Mexican supporters on June 19, 1867.

Key Terms

Napoleon III

The only President (1848–52) of the French Second Republic and the Emperor (1852–70) of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I and the first president of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. He was blocked by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, so he organized a coup d’état in 1851 and then took the throne as Emperor on December 2, 1852, the 48th anniversary of Napoleon I’s coronation. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution.

Maximilian I

The only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he accepted an offer by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico.

Benito Juárez

A Mexican lawyer and politician of Zapotec origin from Oaxaca who served as the president of Mexico for five terms: 1858–1861 as interim, then 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871, and 1871–1872 as constitutional president. He resisted the French occupation of Mexico, overthrew the Second Mexican Empire, restored the Republic, and used liberal measures to modernize the country.

French Intervention in Mexico

The War of the French Intervention was an invasion of Mexico in late 1861 by the Second French Empire, supported in the beginning by the United Kingdom and Spain. It followed Mexican President Benito Juárez’s suspension of interest payments to foreign countries on July 17, 1861, which angered these creditors of Mexico.

Emperor Napoleon III of France was the instigator, justifying military intervention by claiming a broad foreign policy of commitment to free trade. For him, a friendly government in Mexico would ensure European access to Latin American markets. Napoleon also wanted the silver that could be mined in Mexico to finance his empire. Napoleon built a coalition with Spain and Britain while the U.S. was deeply engaged in its civil war.

The three European powers signed the Treaty of London on October 31, 1861, to unite their efforts to receive payments from Mexico. On December 8, the Spanish fleet and troops arrived at Mexico’s main port, Veracruz. When the British and Spanish discovered that France planned to seize all of Mexico, they quickly withdrew from the coalition.

The subsequent French invasion resulted in the Second Mexican Empire. In Mexico, the French-imposed empire was supported by the Roman Catholic clergy, many conservative elements of the upper class, and some indigenous communities. Conservatives and many in the Mexican nobility tried to revive the monarchy by bringing to Mexico an archduke from the Royal House of Austria, Maximilian Ferdinand, or Maximilian I. France had various interests in this Mexican affair, such as seeking reconciliation with Austria, n defeated during the Franco-Austrian War of 1859; counterbalancing the growing American Protestant power by developing a powerful Catholic neighboring empire; and exploiting the rich mines in the northwest of the country.

After heavy guerrilla resistance led by Juárez, which never ceased even after the capital had fallen to the French in 1863, the French eventually withdrew from Mexico and Maximilian I was executed in 1867.

Maximilian I of Mexico

Maximilian I was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he accepted an offer by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico. France invaded Mexico in the winter of 1861, as part of the War of the French Intervention. Seeking to legitimize French rule in the Americas, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new Mexican monarchy for him. With the support of the French army and a group of conservative Mexican monarchists hostile to the liberal administration of new Mexican President Benito Juárez, Maximilian traveled to Mexico. Once there, he declared himself Emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864.

Maximilian’s consort was Empress Carlota of Mexico, and they chose Chapultepec Castle as their home. The Imperial couple noticed the mistreatment of Mexicans, especially Indians, and wanted to ensure their human rights. One of Maximilian’s first acts as Emperor was to restrict working hours and abolish child labor. He cancelled all debts over 10 pesos for peasants, restored communal property, and forbade all forms of corporal punishment. He also broke the monopoly of the Hacienda stores and decreed that henceforth peons could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt. By contrast, Napoleon III wanted to exploit the mines in the northwest of the country and grow cotton.

Maximilian was a liberal, a fact that Mexican conservatives seemingly did not know when he was chosen to head the government. He favored the establishment of a limited monarchy that would share power with a democratically elected congress. Maximilian upheld several liberal policies proposed by the Juárez administration, such as land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote beyond the landholding class. At first, Maximilian offered Juárez an amnesty if he would swear allegiance to the crown, even offering the post of Prime Minister, which Juárez refused. All these policies were too liberal for conservatives, while liberals refused to accept any monarch, considering the republican government of Benito Juárez legitimate. This left Maximilian with few enthusiastic allies within Mexico. Meanwhile, Juárez remained head of the republican government. He continued to be recognized by the United States, which was engaged in its Civil War (1861–65) and at that juncture was in no position to aid Juárez directly against the French intervention until 1865.

France never made a profit in Mexico and its Mexican expedition grew increasingly unpopular. Finally in the spring of 1865, after the US Civil War was over, the U.S. demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Mexico. Napoleon III quietly complied. In mid-1867, despite repeated Imperial losses in battle to the Republican Army and ever-decreasing support from Napoleon III, Maximilian chose to remain in Mexico rather than return to Europe. He was captured and executed along with two Mexican supporters on June 19, 1867, immortalized in a famous painting by Eduard Manet. Juárez remained in office until his death in 1872.

Maximilian has been praised by some historians for his liberal reforms, his genuine desire to help the people of Mexico, his refusal to desert his loyal followers, and his personal bravery during the siege of Querétaro. However, other researchers consider him short-sighted in political and military affairs and unwilling to restore democracy in Mexico even during the imminent collapse of the Second Mexican Empire.

Édouard Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868–1869)

One of five versions of Manet’s representation of the execution of the Austrian-born Emperor of Mexico, which took place on June 19, 1867. Manet borrowed heavily, thematically and technically, from Goya’s The Third of May 1808.

Édouard Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868–1869), is one of five versions of his representation of the execution of the Austrian-born Emperor of Mexico, which took place on June 19, 1867. Manet borrowed heavily, thematically and technically, from Goya’s The Third of May 1808. It shows a group of military men in uniform firing rifles at Maximilian and two other men.

26.4: North America

26.4.1: The Rising Power of the United States

After decades of western expansion and industrial development, by 1890 American production and per capita income exceeded that of all other world nations. The U.S. also emerged as a major military power after the Spanish-American War, exerting its influence throughout the continent and beyond.

Learning Objective

Detail the increasing influence of the United States in the New World

Key Points

• The American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power.
• The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which proclaimed in a long preamble that humanity is created equal in their unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain. It declared, in the words of the resolution, that the Thirteen Colonies were independent states and had no allegiance to the British crown in the United States.
• Britain recognized the independence of the United States following their defeat at Yorktown in 1781.
• Americans’ eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of American Indian Wars.
• The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation’s area.
• A series of military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.
• After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased conflict with Native Americans.
• Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. The American economy boomed, becoming the world’s largest, and the United States achieved great status.

Key Terms

Gilded Age

A term that Mark Twain used to describe the period of the late 19th century with a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity, in which the rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force.

Spanish–American War

A conflict between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain’s Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine-American War.

Manifest Destiny

A widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There are three basic themes to manifest destiny: the special virtues of the American people and their institutions; the mission of the United States to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America; and an irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty.

Brief History of the U.S. Through the 19th Century

In 1776, the Second Continental Congress declared the United States a new, independent nation, no longer just a collection of disparate colonies. With large-scale military and financial support from France and military leadership by General George Washington, the American Patriots won the Revolutionary War against the British, confirming the new nation.

A peace treaty of 1783 gave the U.S. the land east of the Mississippi River (except Florida and Canada). The central government established by the Articles of Confederation proved ineffectual at providing stability, as it had no authority to collect taxes and no executive officer. Congress called a convention to meet secretly in Philadelphia in 1787 and wrote a new Constitution, which was adopted in 1789. In 1791, a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights to all Americans. With Washington as the first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief political and financial adviser, a strong central government was created. When Thomas Jefferson became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States. A second and final war with Britain was fought in 1812.

Encouraged by the notion of Manifest Destiny, federal territory expanded all the way to the Pacific. The U.S. always was large in terms of area, but its population was small: only 4 million in 1790. Population growth was rapid, reaching 7.2 million in 1810, 32 million in 1860, 76 million in 1900, 132 million in 1940, and 321 million in 2015. Economic growth in terms of overall gross domestic product (GDP) was even faster. The expansion was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman farmers and slave owners. The expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial and fueled political and constitutional battles that were resolved by compromises. Slavery was abolished in all states north of the Mason–Dixon line by 1804, but the South continued to profit off the institution, producing high-value cotton exports to feed increasingly high demand in Europe. The 1860 presidential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln was on a platform of ending the expansion of slavery and putting it on a path to extinction.

Seven cotton-based deep South slave states seceded and founded the Confederacy months before Lincoln’s inauguration. No nation ever recognized the Confederacy, but it opened the war by attacking Fort Sumter in 1861. A surge of nationalist outrage in the North fueled a long, intense American Civil War (1861–1865). It was fought largely in the South as the overwhelming material and manpower advantages of the North proved decisive in a long war. The results were restoration of the Union, the impoverishment of the South, and the abolition of slavery. In the Reconstruction era (1863–1877), legal and voting rights were extended to the freed slave. The national government emerged much stronger, and because of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, it gained the explicit duty to protect individual rights. However, when white Democrats regained their power in the South during the 1870s, often by paramilitary suppression of voting, they passed Jim Crow laws to maintain white supremacy and new disfranchising constitutions that prevented most African Americans and many poor whites from voting. This situation that continued for decades until gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and passage of federal legislation to enforce constitutional rights.

Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny

Through wars and treaties; establishment of law and order; building farms, ranches, and towns; marking trails and digging mines; and pulling in great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast, fulfilling the dreams of Manifest Destiny.

From the early 1830s to 1869, the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by over 300,000 settlers. ’49ers (in the California Gold Rush), ranchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs and their families headed to California, Oregon, and other points in the far west. Wagon trains took five or six months on foot; after 1869, the trip took sixdays by rail.

Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was preordained to expand from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. The concept was expressed during Colonial times, but the term was coined in the 1840s by a popular magazine which editorialized, “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny…to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” As the nation grew, manifest destiny became a rallying cry for expansionists in the Democratic Party. In the 1840s the Tyler and Polk administrations (1841–49) successfully promoted this nationalistic doctrine. However, the Whig Party, which represented business and financial interests, was opposed. Whig leaders such as Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln called for deepening society through modernization and urbanization instead of simple horizontal expansion. Starting with the annexation of Texas, the expansionists had the upper hand. John Quincy Adams, an anti-slavery Whig, felt the Texas annexation in 1845 to be “the heaviest calamity that ever befell myself and my country.”

Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821 and took over Spain’s northern possessions from Texas to California. The Spanish and Mexican governments attracted American settlers to Texas with generous terms. Tensions rose, however, after an abortive attempt to establish the independent nation of Fredonia in 1826. William Travis, leading the “war party,” advocated for independence from Mexico, while the “peace party” led by Austin attempted to get more autonomy within the current relationship. Immigration continued and 30,000 Anglos with 3,000 slaves were settled in Texas by 1835. In 1836, the Texas Revolution erupted. Following losses at the Alamo and Goliad, the Texans won the decisive Battle of San Jacinto to secure independence. The U.S. Congress declined to annex Texas, stalemated by contentious arguments over slavery and regional power. Thus, the Republic of Texas remained an independent power for nearly a decade before it was annexed as the 28th state in 1845. The government of Mexico, however, viewed Texas as a runaway province and asserted its ownership.

The latter half of the 19th century was marked by the rapid development and settlement of the far West, first by wagon trains and riverboats and then aided by the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Large numbers of European immigrants (especially from Germany and Scandinavia) took up low-cost or free farms in the Prairie States. Mining for silver and copper opened up the Mountain West. The United States Army fought frequent small-scale wars with Native Americans as settlers encroached on their traditional lands. Gradually the U.S. purchased the Native American tribal lands and extinguished their claims, forcing most tribes onto subsidized reservations.

Manifest Destiny

U.S. territorial acquisitions throughout U.S. history. The new nation grew rapidly in population and area, as pioneers pushed the frontier of settlement west.

A map depicting U.S. territorial acquisitions throughout U.S. history.

A Rising Power: American Industrialism and Imperialism

The “Gilded Age” was a term that Mark Twain used to describe the period of the late 19th century with a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity. The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages were much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker (including men, women and children) rose from $380 in 1880 to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. By 1890 American industrial production and per capita income exceeded those of all other world nations. However, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and inequality as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished European nations—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.

Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, mining, and finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe and the eastern states led to the rapid growth of the West, based on farming, ranching and mining. Labor unions became important in the rapidly growing industrial cities.

The United States emerged as a world economic and military power after 1890. The main episode was the Spanish-American War, which began when Spain refused American demands to reform its oppressive policies in Cuba. The “splendid little war,” as one official called it, involved a series of quick American victories on land and at sea. At the Treaty of Paris peace conference the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Cuba became an independent country under close American tutelage. Although the war itself was widely popular, the peace terms proved controversial. William Jennings Bryan led his Democratic Party in opposition to control of the Philippines, which he denounced as imperialism unbecoming to American democracy. President William McKinley defended the acquisition and was riding high as the nation had returned to prosperity and felt triumphant in the war. McKinley easily defeated Bryan in a rematch in the 1900 presidential election.

After defeating an insurrection by Filipino nationalists, the United States engaged in a large-scale program to modernize the economy of the Philippines and dramatically upgrade the public health facilities. By 1908, however, Americans lost interest in an empire and turned their international attention to the Caribbean, especially the building of the Panama Canal. In 1912 when Arizona became the final mainland state, the American Frontier came to an end. The canal opened in 1914 and increased trade with Japan and the rest of the Far East. A key innovation was the Open Door Policy, in which the imperial powers were given equal access to Chinese business, with not one of them allowed to take control of China.

26.4.2: The Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine, first expressed in 1823 by U.S. President James Monroe, proclaimed that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas.

Learning Objective

Synthesize the Monroe Doctrine and its place in global affairs

Key Points

• The Monroe Doctrine, first promoted in James Monroe’s State of the Union Address in 1823, stated that Europe should no longer interfere in the affairs of the American continent, particularly opposing any new colonial efforts.
• At the same time, the doctrine noted that the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.
• Initially, because the United States was not seen as a major military power, the doctrine was largely ignored by Europe, although Britain generally agreed with its terms for its own reasons.
• The doctrine was welcomed and applauded by most Latin Americans, many of whom were in the midst of freeing themselves from European colonialism.
• In many instances, the United States did not intervene against European actions in the Americas and thus the doctrine was often not enforced. Later in the century, the United States backed Cuba in their fight for independence from Spain in what became the Spanish-American War.

Key Terms

Spanish–American War

A conflict fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain’s Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine-American War.

James Monroe

An American statesman who served as the fifth President of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last president who was a founding father of the United States and the last president from the Virginian dynasty and the Republican Generation. In 1823, he announced the United States’ opposition to any European intervention in the recently independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy.

Pax Britannica

The period of relative peace in Europe (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemonic power and adopted the role of a global police force.

The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas beginning in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.” At the same time, the doctrine noted that the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued in 1823 at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires.

President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress. The term “Monroe Doctrine” itself was coined in 1850. By the end of the 19th century, Monroe’s declaration was seen as a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets. It would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.

The intent and impact of the Monroe Doctrine persisted with only minor variations for more than a century. Its stated objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from European intervention and avoid situations that could make the New World a battleground for the Old World powers, so that the United States could exert its own influence undisturbed. The doctrine asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations.

After 1898, Latin American lawyers and intellectuals reinterpreted the Monroe doctrine in terms of multilateralism and non-intervention. In 1933, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the United States went along with the new reinterpretation, especially in terms of the Organization of American States.

International Response

Because the United States lacked both a credible navy and army at the time, the doctrine was largely disregarded internationally. Prince Metternich of Austria was angered by the statement, and wrote privately that the doctrine was a “new act of revolt” by the United States that would grant “new strength to the apostles of sedition and reanimate the courage of every conspirator.”

The doctrine, however, met with tacit British approval. They enforced it tactically as part of the wider Pax Britannica, which included enforcement of the neutrality of the seas. This was in line with the developing British policy of laissez-faire free trade against mercantilism. Fast-growing British industry sought markets for its manufactured goods, and if the newly independent Latin American states became Spanish colonies again, British access to these markets would be cut off by Spanish mercantilist policy.

The reaction in Latin America to the Monroe Doctrine was generally favorable but in some occasions suspicious. Historian John Crow states, “Simón Bolívar himself, still in the midst of his last campaign against the Spaniards, Santander in Colombia, Rivadavia in Argentina, Victoria in Mexico—leaders of the emancipation movement everywhere—received Monroe’s words with sincerest gratitude.” Crow argues that the leaders of Latin America were realists. They knew that the President of the United States wielded very little power at the time, particularly without the backing of the British forces, and figured that the Monroe Doctrine was unenforceable if the United States stood alone against the Holy Alliance. While they appreciated and praised their support in the north, they knew that the future of their independence was in the hands of the British and their powerful navy. In 1826, Bolivar called upon his Congress of Panama to host the first “Pan-American” meeting. In the eyes of Bolivar and his men, the Monroe Doctrine was to become nothing more than a tool of national policy. According to Crow, “It was not meant to be, and was never intended to be a charter for concerted hemispheric action.”

Enforcement

In early 1843, the British reasserted their sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. No action was taken by the United States, and George C. Herring wrote that the inaction “confirmed Latin American and especially Argentine suspicions of the United States.” In 1838-50 Argentina was blockaded by the French and later by the British. No action was taken by the United States, despite protestations.

In 1842, U.S. President John Tyler applied the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii and warned Britain not to interfere there. This began the process of annexing Hawaii to the United States.

On December 2, 1845, U.S. President James Polk announced that the principle of the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced, reinterpreting it to argue that no European nation should interfere with the American western expansion (“Manifest Destiny”).

In 1862, French forces under Napoleon III invaded and conquered Mexico, giving control to the puppet monarch Emperor Maximilian. Washington denounced this as a violation of the doctrine but was unable to intervene because of the American Civil War. This marked the first time the Monroe Doctrine was widely referred to as a “doctrine.” In 1865 the United States stationed a large combat army on the border to emphasize its demand that France leave. France did pull out, and Mexican nationalists executed Maximilian.

In 1862, Belize was turned into a crown colony of the British empire and renamed British Honduras. The United States took no action against Britain, either during or after the Civil War.

In the 1870s, President Ulysses S. Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish endeavored to supplant European influence in Latin America with that of the United States. In 1870, the Monroe Doctrine was expanded under the proclamation “hereafter no territory on this continent [referring to Central and South America] shall be regarded as subject to transfer to a European power.”

In 1898, the United States intervened in support of Cuba during its war for independence from Spain. The United States won what is known in the United States as the Spanish-American War and in Cuba as the Cuban War for Independence. Under the terms of the peace treaty from which Cuba was excluded, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States in exchange for $20 million. Cuba came under U.S. control and remained so until it was granted formal independence in 1902.

Spanish-American War

Spanish–American War, the result of U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence, which released Cuba from European influence as per the Monroe Doctrine.

A painting depicting Teddy Roosevelt atop a horse leading soldier through a field during the Spanish-American War.

26.4.3: The Canadian Confederation

In 1867, the Province of Canada was joined with two other British colonies, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, through Confederation, forming a self-governing entity named Canada.

Learning Objective

Describe the Canadian Confederation

Key Points

• The Confederation of Canada emerged from multiple impulses. The British wanted Canada to defend itself; British-Canadian nationalism sought to unite the lands into one country, dominated by the English language and British culture; and the fear of possible U.S. expansion northward.
• On a political level, there was a desire for the expansion of responsible government and elimination of the legislative deadlock between Upper and Lower Canada, and their replacement with provincial legislatures in a federation.
• Unification had been discussed as early 1839, but it was not until the 1860s that terms of federation were officially on the table.
• In 1864, there were two important conferences to discuss federation, the Charlottetown Conference and the Quebec Conference. Those who attended are referred to as the Fathers of Confederation.
• The resolutions decided at the Quebec Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in North America into a federation, officially put into effect by Queen Victoria on March 29, 1867, with a royal proclamation.
• While confederation eventually resulted in Canada having more autonomy, it was far from full independence from the United Kingdom.

Key Terms

Fathers of Confederation

The 36 people who attended at least one of the Charlottetown (23 attendees) and Quebec (33) Conferences in 1864 and the London Conference of 1866 (16) in England, preceding Canadian Confederation. 

Dominion

A semi-independent polity under the British Crown constituting the British Empire, beginning with Canadian Confederation in 1867. They included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State, and from the late 1940s also India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Background

In the 1860s, the British were concerned with the possibility of an American assault on Canada in the wake of the American Civil War. Britain also feared that American settlers might expand to the north, into land that was technically British but sparsely settled. There were also problems with raids into Canada launched by the Fenian Brotherhood, a group of Irish Americans who wanted to pressure Britain into granting independence to Ireland. Canada was already essentially a self-governing colony since the 1840s, and Britain no longer felt it was worth the expense of keeping it as a colony. Both sides would be better off politically and economically if Canada was independent. These factors led to the first serious discussions about real political union in Canada. However, there were internal political obstacles to overcome first. The Province of Canada had little success in keeping a stable government for any period of time; the Tories, led by John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier, were constantly at odds with the “Clear Grits” led by George Brown. In 1864, the two parties decided to unite in the “Great Coalition.” This was an important step towards Confederation.

Meanwhile, the colonies farther east—Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland—were also discussing a political union. Representatives from the Province of Canada joined them at the Charlottetown Conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1864 to discuss a union of all the colonies, and these discussions extended into the Quebec Conference of 1864.

Canadian Confederation

The Canadian Confederation was the process by which the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into one Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. Upon Confederation, the old province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec; along with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the new federal state was thus composed of four provinces. Over the years since Confederation, Canada has seen numerous territorial changes and expansions, resulting in the current configuration of ten provinces and three territories.

Technically, Canada is a federation and not a confederate association of sovereign states. It is nevertheless often considered to be among the world’s more decentralized federations.

The Seventy-Two Resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and Charlottetown Conference laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in North America into a federation. They were adopted by the majority of the provinces of Canada and became the basis for the London Conference of 1866, which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The term dominion was chosen to indicate Canada’s status as a self-governing colony of the British Empire, the first time it was used in reference to a country. With the passage of the British North America Act enacted by the British Parliament, the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia became a federated kingdom in its own right.

Confederation was accomplished when the Queen gave royal assent to the British North America Act (BNA Act) on March 29, 1867, followed by a royal proclamation stating: “We do ordain, declare, and command that on and after the First day of July, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-seven, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, shall form and be One Dominion, under the name of Canada.” That act, which united the Province of Canada with the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, came into effect on July 1 that year. It replaced the Act of Union (1840) that previously unified Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the united Province of Canada. Separate provinces were re-established under their current names of Ontario and Quebec. July 1 is now celebrated as a public holiday, Canada Day, the country’s official National Day.

The form of the country’s government was influenced by the American republic to the south. Noting the flaws in the American system, the Fathers of Confederation opted to retain a monarchical form of government.

While the BNA Act eventually resulted in Canada having more autonomy than before, it was far from fully independent from the United Kingdom. Defense of British North America became a Canadian responsibility. Foreign policy remained in British hands, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council remained Canada’s highest court of appeal, and the constitution could be amended only in Britain. 

Gradually, Canada gained more autonomy, and in 1931, obtained almost full autonomy within the British Commonwealth with the Statute of Westminster. Because the provinces of Canada were unable to agree on a constitutional amending formula, this power remained with the British Parliament. In 1982, the constitution was patriated when Elizabeth II gave her royal assent to the Canada Act 1982. The Constitution of Canada is made up of a number of codified acts and uncodified traditions; one of the principal documents is the Constitution Act, 1982, which renamed the BNA Act 1867 to Constitution Act, 1867.

Fathers of Confederation

1885 photo of Robert Harris’ 1884 painting, Conference at Quebec in 1864, to settle the basics of a union of the British North American Provinces, also known as The Fathers of Confederation. The original painting was destroyed in the 1916 Parliament Buildings Centre Block fire. The scene is an amalgamation of the Charlottetown and Quebec City conference sites and attendees.

1885 photo of Robert Harris’ 1884 painting, Conference at Quebec in 1864, to settle the basics of a union of the British North American Provinces, also known as The Fathers of Confederation. It depicts a room filled with a few dozen men, sitting and standing around a conference table.

25.3: Steam Power

25.3.1: Early Steam Engines

Learning Objective

List the early iterations of the steam engine

Key Points

• A steam engine is a heat engine that
  performs mechanical work using steam. The
  history of the steam engine stretches back as far as the 1st century CE. Greek
  mathematician Hero of Alexandria described the first recorded rudimentary steam
  engine, known as the aeolipile.
  In the following centuries, the few early
  steam-powered engines were, like the aeolipile, experimental
  devices used by inventors to demonstrate the properties of steam.
• The first commercial steam-powered device was a
  water pump developed in 1698 by Thomas Savery, who demonstrated it to the Royal
  Society a year later. The patent has no illustrations or even description, but
  in 1702 Savery described the machine in his book The Miner’s Friend,
  or, An Engine to Raise Water by Fire, in which he claimed that it could
  pump water out of mines.
• Savery’s engine received some use in mines and pumping stations and
  for supplying water wheels used to power textile machinery. An attractive
  feature of the Savery engine was its low cost. Bento de Moura Portugal
  introduced an ingenious improvement of Savery’s construction “to render it
  capable of working itself,” as described by John Smeaton in 1751. It
  continued to be manufactured until the late 18th century.
• The first commercially successful engine
  that it could generate power and transmit it to a machine was the atmospheric
  engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen around 1712. It was an improvement over
  Savery’s steam pump, using a piston as proposed by Papin. Newcomen replaced the
  receiving vessel (where the steam was condensed) with a cylinder containing a
  piston based on Papin’s design. Instead of the vacuum drawing in water, it drew
  down the piston. 

• The
  engine was relatively inefficient and in most cases was used for pumping water.
  It was employed for draining mine workings at depths previously impossible and
  for providing a reusable water supply for driving waterwheels at factories
  sited away from a suitable “head.” Water that passed over the
  wheel was pumped back up into a storage reservoir above the wheel.

• Newcomen’s
  engine held its place without material change for about 75 years, spreading
  gradually to more areas of the UK and mainland Europe. Experience led to better construction and minor refinements in layout. Its
  mechanical details were much improved by John Smeaton, who built many large
  engines of this type in the early 1770s; his improvements were rapidly adopted.
  By 1775, about 600 Newcomen engines had been built.

Key Terms

atmospheric engine

An engine invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, often referred to simply as a Newcomen engine. The engine operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum and allowing the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It was the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work.

Steam engine

A heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.

aeolipile

A simple bladeless radial steam turbine, also known as a Heron’s engine, that spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, much like a tip jet or rocket engine. In the 1st century CE, Hero of Alexandria described the device, and many sources give him the credit for its invention.

beam engine

A type of steam engine in which a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall.

Introduction of the Steam Engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam.
The history of the steam engine stretches back as far as the 1st century CE.
Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria described the first recorded rudimentary steam engine, known as the aeolipile. In the following centuries, the few early steam-powered engines were, like the aeolipile, experimental devices used by inventors to demonstrate the properties of steam. A rudimentary steam turbine device was described by Taqi al-Din in 1551 and by Giovanni Branca in 1629. Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont received patents in 1606 for 50 steam-powered inventions, including a water pump for draining inundated mines. Denis Papin, a Huguenot refugee, advanced the construction of the steam digester in 1679 and first used a piston to raise weights in 1690.

Savery’s Engine

The first commercial steam-powered device was a water pump developed in 1698 by Thomas Savery, who demonstrated it to the Royal Society a year later. The patent has no illustrations or even description, but in 1702 Savery described the machine in his book The Miner’s Friend, or, An Engine to Raise Water by Fire, in which he claimed that it could pump water out of mines. Savery’s engine had no piston and no moving parts except the taps. It was operated by first raising steam in the boiler and then admitting it to one of the first working vessels, allowing it to blow out through a downpipe into the water to be raised. When the system was hot and therefore full of steam, the tap between the boiler and the working vessel was shut and, if necessary, the outside of the vessel was cooled. This made the steam inside it condense, creating a partial vacuum, and atmospheric pressure pushed water up the downpipe until the vessel was full. At this point, the tap below the vessel was closed and the tap between it and the up-pipe opened, and more steam was admitted from the boiler. As the steam pressure built up, it forced the water from the vessel up the up-pipe to the top of the mine.

The 1698 Savery Engine, Institute of Human Thermodynamics and IoHT Publishing Ltd.

Savery’s original patent of July 1698 gave 14 years’ protection. The next year, an Act of Parliament was passed, which extended his protection for a further 21 years. This Act became known as the Fire Engine Act. Savery’s patent covered all engines that raised water by fire and thus played an important role in shaping the early development of steam machinery in the British Isles.

Following Savery’s design, small engines were effective but larger models were problematic. They proved only to have a limited lift height and were prone to boiler explosions. The engine received some use in mines, pumping stations and for supplying water wheels used to power textile machinery. An attractive feature of the Savery engine was its low cost. Bento de Moura Portugal introduced an ingenious improvement of Savery’s construction “to render it capable of working itself,” as described by John Smeaton in 1751. It continued to be manufactured until the late 18th century. One engine was still operating in 1820.

Newcomen’s Engine

The first commercially successful engine that it could generate power and transmit it to a machine was the atmospheric engine invented by Thomas Newcomen around 1712. It was an improvement over Savery’s steam pump, using a piston as proposed by Papin.
Newcomen replaced the receiving vessel (where the steam was condensed) with a cylinder containing a piston based on Papin’s design. Instead of the vacuum drawing in water, it drew down the piston. This was used to work a beam engine, in which a large wooden beam rocked upon a central fulcrum. On the other side of the beam was a chain attached to a pump at the base of the mine. As the steam cylinder was refilled with steam, readying it for the next power stroke, water was drawn into the pump cylinder and expelled into a pipe to the surface by the weight of the machinery. 

Newcomen and his partner John Calley built the first successful engine of this type at the Conygree Coalworks near Dudley in the West Midlands. The engine was relatively inefficient and in most cases was used for pumping water. It was employed for draining mine workings at depths previously impossible, and also for providing a reusable water supply for driving waterwheels at factories sited away from a suitable “head.” Water that had passed over the wheel was pumped back up into a storage reservoir above the wheel.

Diagram of the Newcomen steam engine, Henry Black Newton and Harvey Nathaniel Davis, Practical physics for secondary schools. Fundamental principles and applications to daily life, Macmillan and Company, 1913, p. 219.

The Newcomen engine operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum and allowing the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It was the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work.

Newcomen’s engine held its place without material change for about 75 years, spreading gradually to more areas of the UK and mainland Europe. At first brass cylinders were used, but these were expensive and limited in size. New iron casting techniques pioneered by the Coalbrookdale Company in the 1720s allowed bigger cylinders to be used, up to about 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter by the 1760s. Experience led to better construction and minor refinements in layout. Its mechanical details were much improved by John Smeaton, who built many large engines of this type in the early 1770s, and his improvements were rapidly adopted. By 1775, about 600 Newcomen engines had been built.

25.3.2: Boulton and Watt

Learning Objective

Recognize why Boulton and Watt’s steam engine achieved widespread success

Key Points

• In 1763, James Watt, an instrument
  maker at the University of Glasgow, was assigned the job of repairing a
  model Newcomen engine (based on an earlier design of the Savery engine) and noted how inefficient it was. In 1765, Watt conceived
  the idea of equipping the engine with a separate condensation chamber, which he
  called a condenser. Because the condenser and the working cylinder were
  separate, condensation occurred without significant loss of heat from the
  cylinder. This invention dramatically improved the efficiency of the engine.
• Watt’s
  next improvement to the Newcomen design was to seal the top of the cylinder and
  surround the cylinder with a jacket. Steam was passed through the jacket before
  being admitted below the piston, keeping the piston and cylinder warm to
  prevent condensation within it. These improvements led to the fully developed
  version of 1776 that actually went into production.
• The separate condenser showed dramatic potential
  for improvements on the Newcomen engine, but Watt was still discouraged by
  seemingly insurmountable problems before a marketable engine could be
  perfected. It was only after entering into partnership with Matthew Boulton
  that this became reality. Boulton and Watt became an engineering company that was critical to the technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution. 
• As
  fully developed, the Watt engine used about 75% less fuel than a similar Newcomen one. Boulton and Watt’s practice was to help mine owners and
  other customers build engines, supplying men to erect them and specialized parts. However, their main profit from their patent was derived
  from charging a licence fee to the engine owners based on the cost of the fuel
  they saved. The greater fuel efficiency of their engines meant that they were
  most attractive in areas where fuel was expensive.
• Later improvements introduced by Watt included an arrangement of valves that could
  alternately admit low pressure steam to the cylinder and connect with the
  condenser (the double
  acting piston); parallel motion; transforming the action of the beam into a
  rotating motion (first by the epicyclic sun and planet gear system suggested by an employee William Murdoch and later by connecting the beam to a wheel by a crank after patent rights on the use of the crank expired), and
  linking a steam regulator valve to a centrifugal
  governor to keep a constant speed.
• These improvements allowed the steam engine to
  replace the water wheel and horses as the main sources of power for British
  industry, thereby freeing it from geographical constraints and allowing it to become one of
  the main drivers in the Industrial Revolution.

Key Terms

atmospheric engine

An engine invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, often referred to simply as a Newcomen engine. The engine operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum and allowing the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. It was the first practical device to harness steam to produce mechanical work.

condenser

A device or unit used to condense a substance from its gaseous to its liquid state by cooling it, which transfers the latent heat from the substance to the condenser coolant. These devices are typically heat exchangers, which have various designs and come in many sizes ranging from rather small (hand-held) to very large industrial-scale units used in plant processes.

Boulton and Watt

An early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton and the Scottish engineer James Watt, the firm had a major role in the Industrial Revolution and grew to be a major producer of steam engines in the 19th century.

parallel motion

A mechanical linkage invented by the Scottish engineer James Watt in 1784 for the double-acting Watt steam engine. It allows a rod moving straight up and down to transmit motion to a beam moving in an arc, without putting sideways strain on the rod.

reciprocating engine

A heat engine also known as a piston engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. The main types are the internal combustion engine, used extensively in motor vehicles; the steam engine, the mainstay of the Industrial Revolution; and the niche application Stirling engine.

James Watt: Improving the Newcomen Engine

In 1698, English mechanical designer Thomas Savery invented a pumping appliance that used steam to draw water directly from a well by means of a vacuum created by condensing steam. The appliance was also proposed for draining mines, but could only draw fluid up approximately 25 feet, meaning it had to be located within this distance of the mine floor. As mines became deeper, this was often impractical. The solution to draining deep mines was found by Thomas Newcomen, who developed an atmospheric engine that also worked on the vacuum principle. The Newcomen engine was more powerful than the Savery engine. For the first time, water could be raised from a depth of over 150 feet. However, while Newcomen engines brought practical benefits, they were inefficient in terms of energy use. The system of alternately sending jets of steam then cold water into the cylinder meant that the walls of the cylinder were alternately heated then cooled with each stroke. Each charge of steam introduced would continue condensing until the cylinder approached working temperature again, so at each stroke part of the potential of the steam was lost.

In 1763, James Watt was working as instrument maker at the University of Glasgow when he was assigned the job of repairing a model Newcomen engine and noted how inefficient it was. In 1765, Watt conceived the idea of equipping the engine with a separate condensation chamber, which he called a condenser. Because the condenser and the working cylinder were separate, condensation occurred without significant loss of heat from the cylinder. The condenser remained cold and below atmospheric pressure at all times, while the cylinder remained hot at all times. Steam was drawn from the boiler to the cylinder under the piston. When the piston reached the top of the cylinder, the steam inlet valve closed and the valve controlling the passage to the condenser opened. The lower pressure of the condenser, drew the steam into the cylinder where it cooled and condensed from water vapor to liquid water, maintaining a partial vacuum in the condenser that was communicated to the space of the cylinder by the connecting passage. External atmospheric pressure then pushed the piston down the cylinder.

The separation of the cylinder and condenser eliminated the loss of heat that occurred when steam was condensed in the working cylinder of a Newcomen engine. This gave the Watt engine greater efficiency than the Newcomen engine, reducing the amount of coal consumed while doing the same amount of work. In Watt’s design, the cold water was injected only into the condensation chamber. This type of condenser is known as a jet condenser. 

Watt’s next improvement to the Newcomen design was to seal the top of the cylinder and surround it with a jacket. Steam was passed through the jacket before being admitted below the piston, keeping the piston and cylinder warm to prevent condensation within it. Watt did not use high-pressure steam because of safety concerns, although he was aware of its potential and included expansive working knowledge in his patent of 1782. These improvements led to the fully developed version of 1776 that actually went into production.

Boulton and Watt Join Forces

The separate condenser showed dramatic potential for improvements on the Newcomen engine but Watt was still discouraged by seemingly insurmountable problems before a marketable engine could be perfected. It was only after entering into partnership with Matthew Boulton that this became reality. Watt told Boulton about his ideas on improving the engine and Boulton, an avid entrepreneur, agreed to fund development of a test engine at Soho, near Birmingham. At last Watt had access to facilities and the practical experience of craftsmen who were soon able to get the first engine working. As fully developed, it used about 75% less fuel than a similar Newcomen model.

The major components of a Watt pumping engine, Robert H. Thurston, History of the Growth of the Steam Engine, D. Appleton & Co, 1878.

The Boulton and Watt steam engine (known also as the Watt engine), developed sporadically from 1763 to 1775, was an improvement on the design of the Newcomen engine and was a key point in the Industrial Revolution.

The schematic shows the parts of the watt steam pumping engine, including: pump, hot feed water delivery to boiler, plug rod, transfer pipe, hot well, cold water tank, vacuum pump, condenser, vacuum end of cylinder, steam jacket, piston, and low pressure steam end of cylinder.

In 1775, Watt designed two large engines: one for the Bloomfield Colliery at Tipton and one for John Wilkinson’s ironworks at Willey, Shropshire, both completed in 1776. A third engine, at Stratford-le-Bow in east London, was also working that year. Boulton and Watt’s practice was to help mine owners and other customers build engines, supplying men to erect them and specialized parts. However, the main profit from their patent was derived from charging a license fee to the engine owners, based on the cost of the fuel they saved. The greater fuel efficiency of their engines meant that they were most attractive in areas where fuel was expensive, particularly Cornwall, for which three engines were ordered in 1777.

Later Improvements

The first Watt engines were atmospheric pressure engines, like the Newcomen engine but with the condensation separated from the cylinder. Driving the engines using both low pressure steam and a partial vacuum raised the possibility of reciprocating engine development. An arrangement of valves could alternately admit low-pressure steam to the cylinder and connect with the condenser. Consequently, the direction of the power stroke might be reversed, making it easier to obtain rotary motion. Additional benefits of the double-acting engine were increased efficiency, higher speed (greater power), and more regular motion.

Before the development of the double-acting piston, e to the beam and the piston rod were linked by a chain, which meant that power could only be applied in one direction, by pulling. This was effective in engines used for pumping water, but the double action of the piston meant that it could push as well as pull. Further, it was not possible to connect the piston rod of the sealed cylinder directly to the beam, because while the rod moved vertically in a straight line, the beam was pivoted at its center with each side inscribing an arc. To bridge the conflicting actions of the beam and the piston, Watt developed his parallel motion. This masterpiece of engineering uses a four-bar linkage coupled with a pantograph (a type of
current collector)

to produce the required straight-line motion much more cheaply than if he had used a slider type of linkage. He was very proud of his solution.

Watt’s parallel motion on a pumping engine

In a letter to his son in 1808, James Watt wrote, “I am more proud of the parallel motion than of any other invention I have ever made.” The sketch he included actually shows what is now known as Watt’s linkage, which was described in Watt’s 1784 patent but was immediately superseded by the parallel motion. The parallel motion differed from Watt’s linkage by having an additional pantograph linkage incorporated in the design. This did not affect the fundamental principle but it allowed the engine room to be smaller because the linkage was more compact.

Having the beam connected to the piston shaft by a means that applied force alternately in both directions also meant that the motion of the beam could be used to turn a wheel. The simplest solution to transforming the action of the beam into a rotating motion was to connect the beam to a wheel by a crank, but because another party had patent rights on the use of the crank, Watt was obliged to come up with another solution. He adopted the epicyclic sun and planet gear system suggested by employee William Murdoch, only later reverting, once the patent rights had expired, to the more familiar crank seen on most engines today. The main wheel attached to the crank was large and heavy, serving as a flywheel that once set in motion, by its momentum maintained a constant power and smoothed the action of the alternating strokes. To its rotating central shaft, belts and gears could be attached to drive a great variety of machinery. Because factory machinery needed to operate at a constant speed, Watt linked a steam regulator valve to a centrifugal governor, which he adapted from those used to automatically control the speed of windmills.

These improvements allowed the steam engine to replace the water wheel and horses as the main sources of power for British industry, thereby freeing it from geographical constraints and becoming one of the main drivers in the Industrial Revolution. Watt was also concerned with fundamental research on the functioning of the steam engine. His most notable measuring device, still in use today, is the Watt indicator, incorporating a manometer to measure steam pressure within the cylinder according to the position of the piston. This enabled a diagram to be produced representing the pressure of the steam as a function of its volume throughout the cycle.

25.3.3: The Spread of Steam Power

Learning Objective

Give examples of the industries powered by steam

Key Points

• The
  steam engine was one of the most important technologies of the Industrial
  Revolution, inspiring other innovations and initiating further technological advancements. In 1775, James Watt formed an engine-building and engineering partnership
  with manufacturer Matthew Boulton. This served as
  a kind of creative technical center for much of the British economy. They supported talents and other companies, creating a culture where firms often shared information that they could use to create new techniques or products.
• From
  mines to mills, steam engines found many uses in a variety of industries. The
  introduction of steam engines improved productivity and technology and allowed
  the creation of smaller and better engines. Around the start of the 19th century, Cornish engineer
  Richard Trevithick and American Oliver Evans began to construct higher-pressure
  non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere. After
  Trevithick’s development, transport applications became possible and steam
  engines found their way into boats, railways, farms, and road vehicles. 
• The
  steam engine was originally invented and perfected to be used in mines. The
  introduction of the steam pump by Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam engine
  in 1712 greatly facilitated the removal of water and enabled shafts to be made
  deeper, enabling more coal to be extracted. The adoption of John Smeaton’s
  improvements to the Newcomen engine followed by James Watt’s more efficient
  steam engines from the 1770s reduced the fuel costs of engines, making mines
  more profitable.
• Steam
  locomotives were invented after the introduction of high pressure steam
  engines when the Boulton and Watt patent expired in 1800. Steam-hauled public railways began with the Stockton and Darlington
  Railway in 1825. The use of steam engines on railroads proved extraordinary since large amounts of goods and
  raw materials could now be delivered to cities and factories alike at a fraction of the cost traveling by wagon.
• Following the advent of
  the steamboat, the United States saw an incredible growth in the transportation
  of goods and people, which was key in westward expansion. The steamboat
  dramatically reduced time used to transport goods and allowed for increased
  specialization. The steamboat was also critical to facilitating the internal
  slave trade. With the steamboat came the need for an improved
  river system and infrastructure along the rivers.
• Steam engines are a particularly
  illustrative example of how changes brought by industrialization led to
  even more changes in other areas. While many consider the potential for an increase in power generated
  the dominant benefit, others favor the
  potential for agglomeration. Steam engines made it possible to easily work,
  live, produce, market, specialize, and viably expand without having to worry about
  the less abundant presence of waterways. 

Key Terms

Boulton and Watt

An early British engineering
and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and
stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around
Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the English manufacturer
Matthew Boulton and the Scottish engineer James Watt, the firm had a major
role in the Industrial Revolution and grew to be a major producer of steam
engines in the 19th century.

beam engine

A type of steam engine where a
pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical
piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine
directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to
remove water from mines in Cornwall.

steam engine

A heat engine that performs
mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.

Steam Engine Revolution

The steam engine was one of the most important technologies of the Industrial Revolution, although steam did not replace water power in importance in Britain until after the Industrial Revolution. From Englishmen Thomas Savery’s
first practical, atmospheric pressure engine (1698) and Thomas Newcomen’s atmospheric engine (1712) through major developments by Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer James Watt, the steam engine became used in many industrial settings.
In 1775, Watt formed an engine-building and engineering partnership with manufacturer Matthew Boulton that became one of the most important businesses of the Industrial Revolution and served as a creative technical center for much of the British economy. The partners solved technical problems and spread the solutions to other companies. Similar firms did the same thing in other industries and were especially important in the machine tool industry. These interactions between companies reduced the amount of research time and expense that each business had to spend working with its own resources. The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution happened more quickly because firms often shared information they could use to create new techniques or products.

Watt’s rotative engine at the Henry Ford Museum

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan houses a Watt rotative engine manufactured in 1788 by Charles Summerfield. This is a full-scale working Boulton-Watt engine. The American industrialist Henry Ford moved the engine to Dearborn around 1930.

Major Applications

From mines to mills, steam engines found many uses in a variety of industries. The introduction of steam engines improved productivity and technology and allowed the creation of smaller and better engines.
Until about 1800, the most common type of steam engine was the beam engine, built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine-house, but soon various patterns of self-contained rotative engines (readily removable, but not on wheels) were developed, such as the table engine. Around the start of the 19th century, the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick and American Oliver Evans began to construct higher-pressure non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere. After Trevithick’s development, transport applications became possible and steam engines found their way into boats, railways, farms, and road vehicles. 

The steam engine was originally invented and perfected to be used in mines. Before the steam engine, shallow bell pits followed a seam of coal along the surface and were abandoned as the coal was extracted. In other cases, if the geology was favorable, the coal was mined by a drift mine driven into the side of a hill. Shaft mining was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets of water up the shaft or to a tunnel driven into a hill t. In either case, the water had to be discharged into a stream or ditch at a level where it could flow away by gravity. The introduction of the steam pump by Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 greatly facilitated the removal of water and enabled shafts to be made deeper, enabling more coal to be extracted. These developments began before the Industrial Revolution, but the adoption of John Smeaton’s improvements to the Newcomen engine followed by James Watt’s more efficient steam engines from the 1770s reduced the fuel costs of engines, making mines more profitable.

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, inland transport was by navigable rivers and roads, with coastal vessels employed to move heavy goods by sea. Wagon ways were used for conveying coal to rivers for further shipment, but canals had not yet been widely constructed. Animals supplied all of the motive power on land, with sails providing the motive power on the sea. The first horse railways were introduced toward the end of the 18th century, with steam locomotives introduced in the early decades of the 19th century.
Steam locomotives were invented after the introduction of high-pressure steam engines when the Boulton and Watt patent expired in 1800. High-pressure engines exhausted used steam to the atmosphere, doing away with the condenser and cooling water. A few of these early locomotives were used in mines. Steam-hauled public railways began with the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. The use of steam engines on railroads proved extraordinary in the fact that now you could have large amounts of goods and raw materials delivered to cities and factories alike. Trains could deliver these to places far away at a fraction of the cost traveling by wagon.

Particularly in the United States, the introduction and development of the steamboat resulted in vast changes. Prior to the steamboat, rivers were generally only used in transporting goods from east to west, and from north to south as fighting the current was very difficult and often impossible. Non-powered boats and rafts were assembled upstream to carry cargo downstream, and would often be disassembled at the end of their journey and the remains used to construct homes and commercial buildings. Following the advent of the steamboat, the U.S. saw incredible growth in the transportation of goods and people, which was key in westward expansion. The steamboat dramatically reduced time used to transport goods and allowed for increased specialization. It was also critical to facilitating the internal slave trade.

With the steamboat came the need for an improved river system. The natural river system produced such obstacles as rapids, sand bars, shallow waters, and waterfalls. To overcome these natural obstacles, a network of canals, locks, and dams was constructed. This increased demand for labor along the rivers, resulting in tremendous job growth. The popularization of the steamboat also led directly to growth in the coal and insurance industries and demand for repair facilities along the rivers. Additionally, the demand for goods in general increased as the steamboat made transport to new destinations both wide-reaching and efficient.

1920 Steamboat on the Yukon River near Whitehorse, Frank G Carpenter Collection, US Library of Congress.

Prior to the steamboat, it could take between three and four months to make the passage from New Orleans to Louisville, averaging twenty miles a day. With the steamboat this time was reduced drastically with trips ranging from twenty-five to thirty-five days. This was especially beneficial to farmers as their crops could now be transported elsewhere to be sold.

Steam Engine and Societal Progress

Steam engines are a particularly illustrative example of how changes brought by industrialization led to even more changes in other area.

Water power, the world’s preceding supply of power, continued to be an essential source even during the height of steam engine popularity. The steam engine, however, provided many novel benefits. While many consider the potential for an increase in power generated o be the dominant benefit (with the average horsepower of steam powered mills producing four times the power of water powered mills), others favor the potential for agglomeration. Steam engines made it possible to easily work, live, produce, market, specialize, and viably expand without having to worry about the less abundant presence of waterways. Cities and towns were now built around factories, where steam engines served as the foundation for the livelihood of many of the citizens. By promoting the agglomeration of individuals, successful local markets were established. Cities quickly grew and the quality of living eventually increased as infrastructure was put in place. Finer goods could be produced as acquisition of materials became less difficult and expensive. Direct local competition led to higher degrees of specialization and labor and capital were in rich supply. The steam-powered towns encouraged growth both locally and on the national scale.

25.4: Iron Making

25.4.1: The Shift to Coal

The advancement of the steam engine dramatically improved the efficiency of coal mining during the Industrial Revolution, making coal a cheaper, more abundant, and easily available source of energy. This resulted in labor conditions that triggered influential unions and in pollution that sparked the environmental movement.  

Learning Objective

Evaluate the effect the rising use of coal had on development and industry

Key Points

• Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black
  sedimentary rock occurring in layers or veins called
  coal beds or coal seams. It is composed primarily of carbon, along with
  variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and
  nitrogen. A fossil fuel, coal forms from dead plant matter.
• Early coal extraction was small-scale, with coal lying
  either on the surface or very close to it. The early coal mining techniques
  left considerable amount of usable coal behind. Although some deep mining in
  Britain took place as early as the 1500s, deep shaft mining began to develop
  extensively in the late 18th century, with rapid expansion throughout the 19th
  century and early 20th century when the industry peaked. Coalfields helped to make the regions where they were located prosperous. Coal was so abundant in Britain that the supply
  could be stepped up to meet the rapidly rising demand.
• Coal was central to the development of the steam
  engine and, in turn, the steam engine dramatically increased the efficiency of
  coal mining.
  The
  introduction of the steam pump by Thomas Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam
  engine in 1712 greatly facilitated the removal of water from mines and enabled shafts to
  be made deeper, enabling more coal to be extracted. The next major step occurred when James Watt developed
  an improved version of Newcomen’s engine. Watt’s ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of
  manufacturing machinery to be powered.
• Coal
  mining remained very dangerous due to the presence of firedamp in many coal
  seams. Conditions
  of work were very poor, with a high casualty rate from rock falls. Coal mining
  has also been historically linked to bonded labor long after slavery was
  formally abolished in many parts of the world. Some of the worst abuses
  of child labor continued in coal mines. The miners, less affected by imported labor or machines than were the cotton mill workers, began to form trade unions and fight their grim battle for wages against the coal owners and royalty-lessees.
• The
  replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal was also a major change in
  the metal industries during the Industrial Revolution. For a given amount of
  heat, coal required much less labor than cutting wood and converting it
  to charcoal. Coal was also more abundant than wood. The reverberatory furnace
  technology, which keeps impurities in the coal from migrating into the metal, was highly advanced during the period.
  Coal was also central to the gas lighting industry.
• The origins of the environmental movement lay in
  the response to increasing levels of smoke pollution in the atmosphere during
  the Industrial Revolution. The emergence of large factories and corresponding immense growth in coal consumption gave rise to an unprecedented level of air
  pollution in industrial centers. The first non-governmental organizations and environment protection policies were a result of the development of coal-based industries during the Industrial Revolution.

Key Terms

reverberatory furnace

A metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term reverberation is used here in a generic sense of rebounding or reflecting, not in the acoustic sense of echoing.

coke

A fuel with few impurities and a high carbon content, the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. While it can form naturally, the common form is man-made.

steam engine

A heat engine that performs
mechanical work using steam.

Coal and Coal Mining in Britain

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock occurring in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when dead plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, and lastly anthracite. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time.

The history of coal mining goes back thousands of years.

Early coal extraction was small-scale, with coal lying either on the surface or very close to it. The early coal mining techniques left considerable amount of usable coal behind. Although some deep mining in Britain took place as early as the 1500s, deep shaft mining began to develop extensively in the late 18th century, with rapid expansion throughout the 19th century and early 20th century when the industry peaked. The location of the coalfields helped to make the prosperity of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and South Wales. Northumberland and Durham were the leading coal producers and the sites of the first deep pits. In much of Britain, coal was worked from drift mines or scraped off when it outcropped on the surface. Small groups of part-time miners used shovels and primitive equipment.
As a result of these limited methods, in the deep Tyneside pits (300 to 1,000 ft deep) for example, only about 40 percent of the coal could be extracted.

Coal was so abundant in Britain that the supply could be increased to meet the rapidly rising demand. In 1700, the annual output of coal was just under 3 million tons. Between 1770 and 1780, the annual output of coal was some 6.25 million long tons (or about the output of a week and a half in the 20th century). After 1790 output soared, reaching 16 million long tons by 1815.
By 1830 this rose to

over 30 million tons. 

Use of Coal During the Industrial Revolution

The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal as the steam engine took over from the water wheel. In 1700, five-sixths of the world’s coal was mined in Britain.

Steam Engine and Coal Mining

Coal was central to the development of the steam engine and in turn, the steam engine dramatically increased the efficiency of coal mining.
Before the steam engine, shallow bell pits followed a seam of coal along the surface, which were abandoned as the coal was extracted. In other cases, if the geology was favorable, the coal was mined by means of an adit or drift mine driven into the side of a hill. Shaft mining was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets of water up the shaft or to a sough (a tunnel driven into a hill to drain a mine). In either case, the water had to be discharged into a stream or ditch at a level where it could flow away by gravity. 

The introduction of the steam pump by Thomas Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 facilitated the removal of water and enabled shafts to be made deeper so more coal could be extracted. A number of Newcomen engines were successfully put to use in Britain for draining hitherto unworkable deep mines, with the engine on the surface. These large machines, requiring a lot of capital to build, were extremely inefficient by modern standards, but greatly increased the scope of coal miningwhen located where coal was cheap at pit heads. 

Despite their disadvantages, Newcomen engines were reliable and easy to maintain, and continued to be used in the coalfields until the early decades of the 19th century. The next major step occurred when James Watt developed (1763–1775) an improved version of Newcomen’s engine. Boulton and Watt’s early engines used half as much coal as John Smeaton’s improved version of Newcomen’s.
Watt’s ten-horsepower engines could powera wide range of manufacturing machinery and be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained.

Coal mining remained very dangerous due to the presence of firedamp in many coal seams. Some degree of safety was provided by the safety lamp invented in 1816 by Sir Humphry Davy and independently by George Stephenson. However, the lamps proved a false dawn because they became unsafe very quickly and provided a weak light. Firedamp explosions continued, often setting off coal dust explosions, so casualties grew during the entire 19th century. Conditions of work were very poor, with a high casualty rate from rock falls. 

Coal mining has also been historically linked to bonded labor long after slavery was formally abolished in many parts of the world. For example, Scottish miners had been bonded to their “masters” by a 1606 Act “Anent Coalyers and Salters.” A Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775, recognized this to be “a state of slavery and bondage” and formally abolished it. This decision was made effective by a further law in 1799. Some of the worst abuses of child labor continued in coal mines throughout the Industrial Revolution.
The miners, less affected by imported labor or machines than were the cotton mill workers, began to form trade unions and fight their grim battle for wages against the coal owners and royalty-lessees. In South Wales, the miners showed a high degree of solidarity. They lived in isolated villages where they comprised the great majority of workers. There was a high degree of equality in lifestyle. Combined with an evangelical religious style based on Methodism, this led to forging a “community of solidarity” under the leadership of the Miners Federation.

The 1906 Courrières mine disaster in France, anonymous author in Le Petit Journal, No. 801, 1906.

Mining has always been dangerous because of methane gas explosions, roof cave-ins, and the difficulty of mine rescue. The worst single disaster in British coal mining history was at Senghenydd in the South Wales coalfield. In 1913 an explosion and subsequent fire killed 436 men and boys. The Courrières mine disaster, Europe’s worst mining accident, caused the death of 1,099 miners in Northern France in 1906.

Wagonways for moving coal in the mining areas started in the 17th century and were often associated with canal or river systems for the further movement of coal. These were all horse-drawn or relied on gravity, with a stationary steam engine to haul the wagons back to the top of the incline. The first applications of the steam locomotive were on wagon or plate ways (as they were then often called from the cast-iron plates used). Horse-drawn public railways did not begin until the early years of the 19th century when improvements to pig and wrought iron production lowered costs.
The development of the steam locomotive by Trevithick early in the 19th century gave added impetus and coal consumption grew rapidly as the railway network expanded through the Victorian period. 

Metallurgy 

The replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal was also a major change in the metal industries during the Industrial Revolution. For a given amount of heat, coal required much less labor to mine than cutting wood and converting it to charcoal, and coal was more abundant than wood.

Use of coal in smelting started somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on innovations by Sir Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. These were operated by the flames playing on the ore and charcoal or coke mixture, reducing the oxide to metal. This means that impurities (such as sulfur ash) in the coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to lead from 1678 and to copper from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. This was followed by Abraham Darby, who made great strides using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale in 1709. Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron in forges until the mid-1750s, when Abraham’s son, Abraham Darby II, built Horsehay and Ketley furnaces (not far from Coalbrookdale). By then, coke pig iron was cheaper than charcoal pig iron. 

Gas Lighting

Another major industry of the later Industrial Revolution where coal was central was gas lighting. Although others made a similar innovation elsewhere, its large-scale introduction was the work of William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton & Watt, the steam engine pioneers. The process consisted of the large-scale gasification of coal in furnaces, the purification of the gas (removal of sulfur, ammonia, and heavy hydrocarbons), and its storage and distribution. The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between 1812 and 1820. They soon became one of the major consumers of coal in Britain. Gas lighting affected social and industrial organization because it allowed factories and stores to remain open longer than with tallow candles or oil. Its introduction allowed nightlife to flourish in cities and towns as interiors, and streets could be lighted on a larger scale than before.

Industrial Revolution, Coal, and Environmental Movement

The origins of the environmental movement lay in the response to increasing levels of smoke pollution in the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution. The emergence of great factories and the concomitant immense growth in coal consumption gave rise to an unprecedented level of air pollution in industrial centers. After 1900 the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. The first large-scale, modern environmental laws came in the form of Britain’s Alkali Acts, passed in 1863, to regulate the deleterious air pollution given off by the Leblanc process used to produce soda ash. 

St. Rollox Chemical Works in 1831, author unknown. 

Levels of air pollution rose during the Industrial Revolution, sparking the first modern environmental laws to be passed in the mid-19th century.

In industrial cities, local experts and reformers, especially after 1890, took the lead in identifying environmental degradation and pollution and initiating grass-roots movements to demand and achieve reforms. Typically the highest priority was water and air pollution. The Coal Smoke Abatement Society was formed in Britain in 1898 making it one of the oldest environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It was founded by artist Sir William Blake Richmond, who was frustrated with the pall cast by coal smoke. Although there were earlier pieces of legislation, the Public Health Act of 1875 required all furnaces and fireplaces to consume their own smoke. It also provided for sanctions against factories that emitted large amounts of black smoke.

25.4.2: Changes to Iron Production

Technological advancements in metallurgy, most notably smelting with coal or coke, increased the supply and decreased the price of iron, aiding a number of industries and making iron common in the rapidly growing machinery and engine sectors.

Learning Objective

Break down how iron production changed during the Industrial Revolution

Key Points

• Early
  iron smelting used charcoal as both the heat source and the reducing agent. By
  the 18th century, the availability of wood for making charcoal limited the
  expansion of iron production, so England became increasingly dependent on imports from Sweden and Russia. Smelting with coal
  (or its derivative coke) was a long-sought objective, with some early advancements ٞachieved throughout the 17th century. Britain’s
  demand for iron and steel, combined with ample capital and energetic
  entrepreneurs, rapidly made it the world leader of metallurgy.  
• A
  major change in the metal industries during the era of the Industrial
  Revolution was the replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal. Use of coal
  in smelting started somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on
  innovations by Sir Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal
  reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. With cupolas, impurities in the coal did not
  migrate into the metal. 
• Abraham
  Darby made great strides using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale
  in 1709. However, coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron in forges
  until the mid-1750s, when his son Abraham Darby II built Horsehay and Ketley
  furnaces. Since cast
  iron was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it became a structural
  material following the building of the innovative Iron Bridge in 1778 by
  Abraham Darby III.
• Wrought
  iron for smiths to forge into consumer goods was still made in finery forges,
  as it long had been. However, new processes were adopted in the ensuing years.
  The first is referred to today as potting and stamping, but this was superseded
  by Henry Cort’s puddling process. Cort developed two significant iron
  manufacturing processes: rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784. Rolling replaced
  hammering for consolidating wrought iron and expelling some of the dross.
  Rolling was 15 times faster than hammering with a trip hammer. 
• Hot blast, patented by James Beaumont Neilson in
  1828, was the most important development of the 19th century for saving energy
  in making pig iron. By using waste exhaust heat to preheat combustion air, the
  amount of fuel to make a unit of pig iron was reduced. 
• The
  supply of cheaper iron aided a number of industries. The development of
  machine tools allowed better working of iron, increasing its use in the rapidly growing machinery and engine industries. Prices of many
  goods decreased, making them more
  available and common. 

Key Terms

reverberatory furnaces

A metallurgical or process
furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the
fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term reverberation is
used here in a generic sense of rebounding or reflecting,
not in the acoustic sense of echoing.

Iron Bridge

A bridge that crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England. Opened in 1781, it was the first arch bridge in the world to be made of cast iron and was greatly celebrated after construction.

pig iron

An intermediate product of the iron industry. It has a very high carbon content, typically 3.5–4.5%, along with silica and other constituents of dross, which makes it very brittle and not useful as a material except in limited applications. It is made by smelting iron ore into a transportable ingot of impure high carbon-content iron as an ingredient for further processing steps. It is the molten iron from the blast furnace, a large cylinder-shaped furnace charged with iron ore, coke, and limestone.

coke

A fuel with few impurities and a
high carbon content, usually made from coal. It is the solid
carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of
low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. While it can be formed naturally, the
commonly used form is man-made.

Iron and Industrial Revolution in Britain

Early iron smelting used charcoal as both the heat source and the reducing agent. By the 18th century, the availability of wood for making charcoal had limited the expansion of iron production, so England became increasingly dependent on Sweden (from the mid-17th century) and then from about 1725 on Russia for the iron required for industry. Smelting with coal (or its derivative coke) was a long-sought objective. The production of pig iron with coke was probably achieved by Dud Dudley in the 1620s, and with a mixed fuel made from coal and wood again in the 1670s. However this was only a technological rather than a commercial success. Shadrach Fox may have smelted iron with coke at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire in the 1690s, but only to make cannonballs and other cast iron products such as shells. In the time of peace, they did not enjoy much demand.  

Britain’s demand for iron and steel, combined with ample capital and energetic entrepreneurs, rapidly made it the world leader of the metallurgy. In 1875, Britain accounted for 47% of world production of pig iron and almost 40% of steel. Forty percent of British output was exported to the U.S., which was rapidly building its rail and industrial infrastructure. The growth of pig iron output was dramatic. Britain went from 1.3 million tons in 1840 to 6.7 million in 1870 and 10.4 in 1913. 

Technological Advancements 

A major change in the metal industries during the era of the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal. For a given amount of heat, coal required much less labor to mine than cutting wood and converting it to charcoal, and coal was more abundant than wood. Use of coal in smelting started before the Industrial Revolution based on innovations by Sir Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. These were operated by the flames playing on the ore and charcoal or coke mixture, reducing the oxide to metal. This has the advantage that impurities such as sulfur ash in the coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to lead from 1678 and to copper from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. The foundry cupola is a different (and later) innovation.

Reverberatory furnace 

The reverberatory furnace could produce cast iron using mined coal. The burning coal remained separate from the iron ore and so did not contaminate the iron with impurities like sulfur and ash. This opened the way to increased iron production.

The diagram shows how hot gas and radiant heat move through the firebox, hearth, and flue.

Abraham Darby made great strides using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale in 1709. However, the coke pig iron he made was used mostly for the production of cast iron goods, such as pots and kettles. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper than theirs. Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron in forges until the mid-1750s, when his son Abraham Darby II built Horsehay and Ketley furnaces. By then, coke pig iron was cheaper than charcoal pig iron. Since cast iron was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it became a structural material following the building of the innovative Iron Bridge in 1778 by Abraham Darby III.

The Iron Bridge, opened in 1781

The Iron Bridge
crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England, and is the first bridge in the world to be made of cast iron. During the winter of 1773–74, local newspapers advertised a proposal to petition Parliament for leave to construct an iron bridge with a single 120 feet (37 m) span. In 1775, Abraham Darby III, the grandson of Abraham Darby I and an ironmaster working at Coalbrookdale, was appointed treasurer to the project.

Wrought iron for smiths to forge into consumer goods was still made in finery forges, as it long had been. However, new processes were adopted in the ensuing years. The first is referred to today as potting and stamping, but this was superseded by Henry Cort’s puddling process. Cort developed two significant iron manufacturing processes: rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784. Rolling replaced hammering for consolidating wrought iron and expelling some of the dross. Rolling was 15 times faster than hammering with a trip hammer. Roller mills were first used for making sheets, but also rolled structural shapes such as angles and rails.

Puddling produced structural-grade iron at a relatively low cost. It was a means of decarburizing pig iron by slow oxidation, with iron ore as the oxygen source, as the iron was manually stirred using a long rod.
Puddling was done in a reverberatory furnace, allowing coal or coke to be used as fuel.
The decarburized iron, having a higher melting point than cast iron, was raked into globs by the puddler. When the glob was large enough, the puddler would remove it. Puddling was backbreaking and extremely hot work. Few puddlers lived to age 40. The process continued ntil the late 19th century when iron was displaced by steel. Because puddling required human skill in sensing the iron globs, it was never successfully mechanized. 

Hot blast, patented by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, was the most important development of the 19th century for saving energy in making pig iron. By using waste exhaust heat to preheat combustion air, the amount of fuel to make a unit of pig iron was reduced at first by between one-third using coal or two-thirds using coke. However, the efficiency gains continued as the technology improved. Hot blast also raised the operating temperature of furnaces, increasing their capacity. Using less coal or coke meant introducing fewer impurities into the pig iron. This meant that lower quality coal or anthracite could be used in areas where coking coal was unavailable or too expensive.

The supply of cheaper iron aided a number of industries, such as those making nails, hinges, wire, and other hardware items. The development of machine tools allowed better working of iron, leading to increased use in the rapidly growing machinery and engine industries. Iron was used in agricultural machines, making farm labor more effective. The new technological advancements were also critical to the development of the rail. Prices of many goods, such as iron cooking utensils, decreased, making them more available and commonly used. 

25.4.3: Steel Production

Before 1860, steel was expensive and produced in small quantities, but the development of
crucible steel technique by Benjamin Huntsman in the 1740s,

the Bessemer process in the 1850s, and the Siemens-Martin process in the 1850s-1860s resulted in the mass production of steel, one of the key advancements behind the Second Industrial Revolution.

Learning Objective

Postulate the effects of improved steel production on the progression of industry.

Key Points

• Steel
  is an alloy of iron and other elements, primarily carbon, that is widely used
  in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and
  low cost. Steel’s base metal is iron. It was
  first produced in antiquity, but two decades before the Industrial Revolution an
  improvement was made in the production of steel, which at the time was an
  expensive commodity used only where iron would not do.
• Benjamin
  Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s. He was able to make satisfactory cast steel in clay pot
  crucibles, each holding about 34 pounds of blister steel. A flux was
  added, and they were covered and heated by coke for about three
  hours. The molten steel was then poured into molds and the crucibles reused.
  For a long
  time Huntsman exported his whole output to France as local producers refused to work with steel harder than they were already using. 
• Steel
  is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial
  mass-production that characterize the Second Industrial
  Revolution. Before
  about 1860, steel was still an expensive product. The problem of mass-producing cheap steel was solved in
  1855 by Henry Bessemer with the introduction of the Bessemer converter at his
  steelworks in Sheffield, England.
  Further experiments by Göran Fredrik Göransson and Robert Forester Mushet allowed Bessemer to perfect what would be known as the Bessemer process.
• Although initially Bessemer met with
  rebuffs and was forced to undertake the exploitation of his process himself, eventually licences were applied for in such numbers that Bessemer received royalties exceeding a million pounds sterling. By 1870, Bessemer steel was widely used
  for ship plate. The Bessemer process also made steel railways competitive in price. Experience quickly proved steel had much greater strength
  and durability and could handle the heavier and faster engines and
  cars. 
• After
  1890, the Bessemer process was gradually supplanted by open-hearth steel making.
  Carl Wilhelm Siemens developed the Siemens regenerative furnace in the
  1850s. This furnace operated at a high temperature by using regenerative
  preheating of fuel and air for combustion. In 1865, Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license
  from Siemens and applied his regenerative furnace for making steel. The
  Siemens-Martin process was slower and thus easier to control. It also permitted the melting and
  refining of large amounts of scrap steel, further lowering steel production
  costs and recycling an otherwise troublesome waste material.
• The
  Siemens-Martin process became the leading steel-making process by the early
  20th century. The availability of cheap steel allowed larger bridges,
  railroads, skyscrapers, and ships. Other important steel products were steel cable, steel rod, and sheet steel, which
  enabled large, high-pressure boilers and high-tensile strength steel for
  machinery. Military equipment also improved significantly. 

Key Terms

Second Industrial Revolution

A phase of rapid industrialization in the final third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, also known as the Technological Revolution. Although a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts, and the invention of the Bessemer Process, it is generally dated between 1870 and 1914 up to the start of World War I.

Bessemer process

The first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.

crucible steel

A term that applies to steel made by two different methods in the modern era and produced in varying locales throughout history. It is made by melting iron and other materials. It was produced in South and Central Asia during the medieval era but techniques for production of high-quality steel were developed by Benjamin Huntsman in England in the 18th century. However, Huntsman’s process used iron and steel as raw materials rather than direct conversion from cast iron as in the later Bessemer process. The homogeneous crystal structure of this cast steel improved its strength and hardness compared to preceding forms of steel.

cementation

An obsolete technology for making steel by carburization of iron. Unlike modern steel making, it increased the amount of carbon in the iron. It was apparently developed before the 17th century. Derwentcote Steel Furnace, built in 1720, is the earliest surviving example of a furnace using this technology.

carburization

A heat treatment process in which iron or steel absorbs carbon while the metal is heated in the presence of a carbon-bearing material, such as charcoal or carbon monoxide. The intent is to make the metal harder. Unlike modern steel making, the process increased the amount of carbon in the iron.

Steel and the Industrial Revolution

Steel is an alloy of iron and other elements, primarily carbon, that is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and low cost. Steel’s base metal is iron, which is able to take on two crystalline forms, body-centered cubic (BCC) and face-centered cubic (FCC), depending on its temperature. It is the interaction of those allotropes with the alloying elements, primarily carbon, that gives steel and cast iron their range of unique properties. In the BCC arrangement, there is an iron atom in the center of each cube, and in the FCC, there is one at the center of each of the six faces of the cube. Carbon, other elements, and inclusions within iron act as hardening agents that prevent the movement of dislocations that otherwise occur in the crystal lattices of iron atoms.

Steel (with lower carbon content than pig iron but higher than wrought iron) was first produced in antiquity, but two decades before the Industrial Revolution an improvement was made in the production of steel, which at the time was an expensive commodity used only where iron would not do, such as for cutting-edge tools and for springs. Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s.
After many experiments, Huntsman was able to make satisfactory cast steel in clay pot crucibles, each holding about 34 pounds of blister steel. A flux was added, and they were covered and heated by coke for about three hours. The molten steel was then poured into molds and the crucibles reused. The local cutlery manufacturers refused to buy Huntsman’s cast steel, as it was harder than the German steel they were accustomed to using. For a long time Huntsman exported his whole output to France. Blister steel used by Huntsman as raw material was made by the cementation process or by carburization of iron.
Carburization is a heat treatment process, in which iron or steel absorbs carbon while the metal is heated in the presence of a carbon-bearing material, such as charcoal or carbon monoxide. The intent is to make the metal harder. Unlike modern steel making, the process increased the amount of carbon in the iron. 

Second Industrial Revolution 

Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production that characterize the Second Industrial Revolution beginning around 1850, although a method for mass manufacture of steel was not invented until the 1860s and became widely available in the 1870s after the process was modified to produce more uniform quality.

Before about 1860, steel was an expensive product, made in small quantities and used mostly for swords, tools, and cutlery. All large metal structures were made of wrought or cast iron. The problem of mass-producing cheap steel was solved in 1855 by Henry Bessemer with the introduction of the Bessemer converter at his steelworks in Sheffield, England. In the Bessemer process, molten pig iron from the blast furnace was charged into a large crucible, and air was blown through the molten iron from below, igniting the dissolved carbon from the coke. As the carbon burned off, the melting point of the mixture increased, but the heat from the burning carbon provided the extra energy needed to keep the mixture molten. After the carbon content in the melt dropped to the desired level, the air draft was cut off. A typical Bessemer converter could convert a 25-ton batch of pig iron to steel in half an hour. Bessemer demonstrated the process in 1856 and had a successful operation going by 1864. 

Bessemer converter, print published in 1867 in Great Britain.

Alhough the Bessemer process is no longer commercially used, at the time of its invention it was of enormous industrial importance because it lowered the cost of production steel, leading to steel being widely substituted for cast iron.Bessemer’s attention was drawn to the problem of steel manufacture in an attempt to improve the construction of guns.

Bessemer licensed the patent for his process to five ironmasters, but from the outset, the companies had great difficulty producing good quality steel. Göran Fredrik Göransson, a Swedish ironmaster, using the purer charcoal pig iron of that country, was the first to make good steel by the process, but only after many attempts. His results prompted Bessemer to try a purer iron obtained from Cumberland hematite, but had only limited success because the quantity of carbon was difficult to control. Robert Forester Mushet, after thousands of experiments at Darkhill Ironworks, had shown that the quantity of carbon could be controlled by removing almost all of it from the iron and then adding an exact amount of carbon and manganese in the form of spiegeleisen (a ferromanganese alloy). This improved the quality of the finished product and increased its malleability.

When Bessemer tried to induce makers to take up his improved system, he met with general rebuffs and was eventually driven to undertake the exploitation of the process himself. He erected steelworks in Sheffield in a business partnership with others, such as W & J Galloway & Sons, and began to manufacture steel. At first the output was insignificant, but gradually the magnitude of the operation was enlarged until the competition became effective and steel traders became aware that the firm of Henry Bessemer & Co. was underselling them to the extent of UK£10-£15 a ton. This argument to the pocket quickly had its effect, and licenses were applied for in such numbers that, in royalties for the use of his process, Bessemer received a sum considerably exceeding a million pounds sterling.
By 1870, Bessemer steel was widely used for ship plate. By the 1850s, the speed, weight, and quantity of railway traffic was limited by the strength of the wrought-iron rails in use. The solution was to turn to steel rails, which the Bessemer process made competitive in price. Experience quickly proved steel had much greater strength and durability and could handle the heavier and faster engines and cars.

However, Mushet received nothing and by 1866 was destitute and in ill health. In that year his 16-year-old daughter, Mary, traveled to London alone to confront Bessemer at his offices, arguing that his success was based on the results of her father’s work. Bessemer decided to pay Mushet an annual pension of £300, a very considerable sum, which he did for over 20 years, possibly to keep the Mushets from legal action.

After 1890, the Bessemer process was gradually supplanted by open-hearth steel making.
Sir Carl Wilhelm Siemens developed the Siemens regenerative furnace in the 1850s and claimed in 1857 to be recovering enough heat to save 70–80% of the fuel. This furnace operated at a high temperature by using regenerative preheating of fuel and air for combustion. In regenerative preheating, the exhaust gases from the furnace are pumped into a chamber containing bricks, where heat is transferred from the gases to the bricks. The flow of the furnace is then reversed so that fuel and air pass through the chamber and are heated by the bricks. Through this method, an open-hearth furnace can reach temperatures high enough to melt steel, but Siemens did not initially use it for that. In 1865, the French engineer Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license from Siemens and first applied his regenerative furnace for making steel. The most appealing characteristic of the Siemens regenerative furnace is the rapid production of large quantities of basic steel, used for example to construct high-rise buildings. 

Siemens furnace from 1895

The most appealing characteristic of the Siemens regenerative furnace was the rapid production of large quantities of basic steel, used for example to construct high-rise buildings.
Through Siemens’ method, an open-hearth furnace could reach temperatures high enough to melt steel, but Siemens did not initially use it for that. It was Martin who first applied the regenerative furnace for making steel.

The Siemens-Martin process complemented rather than replaced the Bessemer process. It was slower and thus easier to control. It also permitted the melting and refining of large amounts of scrap steel, further lowering steel production costs and recycling an otherwise troublesome waste material. Its worst drawback was and remains the fact that melting and refining a charge takes several hours. Furthermore, the work environment around an open hearth furnace was and remains extremely dangerous.

The Siemens-Martin process became the leading steel making process by the early 20th century.
The availability of cheap steel allowed larger bridges, railroads, skyscrapers, and ships. Other important steel products—also made using the open hearth process—were steel cable, steel rod, and sheet steel which enabled large, high-pressure boilers and high-tensile strength steel for machinery, creating much more powerful engines, gears, and axles than were previously possible. With large amounts of steel, it also became possible to build much more powerful guns and carriages, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and naval ships.

25.5: Innovations in Transportation

25.5.1: Canals

The modern canal network in Britain emerged because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities, simultaneously responding to the needs of the Industrial Revolution and fueling its further advancement. 

Learning Objective

Demonstrate the importance of canals to commerce.

Key Points

• The British canal system
  played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only
  just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of packhorses were the only
  means of more easily accessible transport.
  In Britain, the modern canal
  network came into being because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic
  and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities. Some important river navigation improvements took place in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Big canals began to be built in the 18th century
  to link the major manufacturing centers across the country. Known for its huge
  commercial success, the Bridgewater Canal in North West England opened in 1761.
  It connected Worsley with the rapidly growing town of Manchester and was a
  huge financial success. This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building,
  known as Canal Mania. An embryonic national canal
  network came into being and a dramatic rise in the number
  of schemes and money invested emerged. New canals were hastily built in the aim of
  replicating the commercial success of the Bridgewater Canal.
• By the 1820s a national network – first in the
  world – was in existence. The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on
  the canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to
  walk along. This horse-drawn system was highly economical and became standard
  across the British canal network.
• This
  success proved the viability of canal transport and soon industrialists in many
  other parts of the country wanted canals. As people saw the high incomes achieved from canal tolls, canal proposals came
  to be put forward by investors. In a further development, there was often
  out-and-out speculation, in which people would try to buy shares in a newly
  floated company simply to sell them on for an immediate profit, regardless of
  whether the canal was ever profitable or even built. Many rival canal companies were formed and
  competition was rampant.
• On
  the majority of British canals the canal-owning companies did not own or run a
  fleet of boats. Instead, they charged private operators
  tolls to use the canal. In
  the period of the most rapid development of the canal system, crews were all
  male and their families lived in cottages on the bank. Wives and
  children came aboard as extra labor and to save rental costs during the latter
  part of the 19th century. During this period, whole families lived aboard the
  boats. They were often marginalized from land-based society and perceived as strange
  outsiders living a nomadic lifestyle.  

• From
  about 1840, railways began to threaten canals. Although they could not only
  carry more than the canals, they could transport people and goods far more
  quickly than the walking pace of the canal boats. Most of the investment that
  had previously gone into canal building was diverted into railway building.

Key Terms

flyboat

A European light vessel,developed primarily as a mercantile cargo carrier, although many served as warships in an auxiliary role, used in the late 16th and early 17th century. The name was subsequently applied to a number of disparate vessels, which achieved high speeds or endurance, including those that worked day and night on British canals to compete with the rapidly developing railway.

Bridgewater Canal

A canal that connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to Leigh. Its immense economic success triggered the development of a national canal system. 

Canal Mania

The period of intense canal building in Britain between the 1790s and 1810s and the speculative frenzy that accompanied it in the early 1790s.

Canal Mania

The British canal system of water transport played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of packhorses were the only means of more easily accessible transit of raw materials and finished products.
Building of canals dates to ancient times but in Britain, the modern canal network came into being because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities. Some 29 river navigation improvements took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, starting with the Thames locks and the River Wey Navigation. The biggest growth was in the so-called narrow canals, which extended water transport to the emerging industrial areas of the Staffordshire potteries and Birmingham as well as a network of canals joining Yorkshire and Lancashire and extending to London.

Big canals began to be built in the 18th century to link the major manufacturing centers across the country. Known for its huge commercial success, the Bridgewater Canal in North West England opened in 1761. It connected Worsley with the rapidly growing town of Manchester and its construction cost £168,000 (equivalent of over £22 million in 2013), but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within a year of its opening, the price of coal in Manchester fell by about half.
The Bridgewater Canal was a huge financial success: it repaid the cost of its construction within just a few years.

This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building, known as Canal Mania.
Within just a few years of the Bridgewater’s opening, an embryonic national canal network came into being, with the construction of canals such as the Oxford Canal and the Trent & Mersey Canal.

There was a dramatic rise in the number of schemes promoted. Only one canal was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1790, but by 1793 it was twenty. The capital authorized in 1790 was £90,000 but rose to nearly £3 million by 1793. New canals were hastily built in the aim of replicating the commercial success of the Bridgewater Canal, the most notable being the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Thames and Severn Canal which opened in 1774 and 1789 respectively.

Worsley Packet House, overlooking the Bridgewater Canal in Worsley, Greater Manchester, photo: Wikipedia. 

The Bridgewater Canal is often considered to be the first “true” canal in England. It required the construction of an aqueduct to cross the River Irwell, one of the first of its kind. Its success helped inspire a period of intense canal building in Britain, known as Canal Mania.

By the 1820s a national network – first in the world – was in existence. The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on the canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to walk along. This horse-drawn system was highly economical and became standard across the British canal network. The canal boats could carry thirty tons at a time with only one horse pulling – more than ten times the amount of cargo per horse that was possible with a cart. It was this huge increase in supply that contributed to the reduction of the price of coal.  

Speculative Frenzy

This success proved the viability of canal transport and soon industrialists in many other parts of the country wanted canals. After the Bridgewater Canal, the early canals were built by groups of private individuals with an interest in improving communications. In Staffordshire the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood saw an opportunity to bring bulky cargoes of clay to his factory doors and to transport his fragile finished goods to market in Manchester, Birmingham, or further afield by water, minimizing breakages. The new canal system was both cause and effect of the rapid industrialization of the Midlands and the north. The period between the 1770s and the 1830s is often referred to as the Golden Age of British canals.

For each canal, an Act of Parliament was necessary to authorize construction, and as people saw the high incomes achieved from canal tolls, canal proposals came to be put forward by investors interested in profiting from dividends, at least as much as by people whose businesses would profit from cheaper transport of raw materials and finished goods. In a further development, there was often out-and-out speculation, in which people would try to buy shares in a newly floated company simply to sell them on for an immediate profit, regardless of whether the canal was ever profitable or even built. During this period of Canal Mania, huge sums were invested in canal building and although many schemes came to nothing, the canal system rapidly expanded to nearly 4,000 miles (over 6,400 kilometers) in length.

Many rival canal companies were formed and competition was rampant. Perhaps the best example was Worcester Bar in Birmingham, a point where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line were only 7 feet (2.1 m) apart. For many years, a dispute about tolls meant that goods travelling through Birmingham had to be portaged from boats in one canal to boats in the other.

Operation

On the majority of British canals the canal-owning companies did not own or run a fleet of boats, since this was usually prohibited by the Acts of Parliament setting them up to prevent monopolies. Instead, they charged private operators tolls to use the canal. These tolls were also usually regulated by the Acts. From these tolls they would try, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the canal, pay back initial loans, and pay dividends to their shareholders.

In winter special icebreaker boats with reinforced hulls would be used to break the ice. Packet boats carried packages up to 112 pounds (51 kg) in weight as well as passengers at relatively high speed day and night. To compete with railways, the flyboat was introduced, cargo-carrying boats working day and night. These boats were crewed by three men, who operated a watch system whereby two men worked while the other slept. Horses were changed regularly. When steam boats were introduced in the late 19th century, crews were enlarged to four. The boats were owned and operated by individual carriers, or by carrying companies who would pay the captain a wage depending on the distance traveled and the amount of cargo.

Traditional working canal boats, photo: Wikipedia. 

The canal system grew rapidly at first, and became an almost completely connected network covering the South, Midlands, and parts of the North of England and Wales. There were canals in Scotland, but they were not connected to the English canals or, generally, to each other (with some exceptions).

In the period of the most rapid development of the canal system, crews were all male and their families lived in cottages on the bank. The practice of all male crews for steamers continued until after the First World War. Wives and children came aboard as extra labor and to save rental costs during the latter part of the 19th century. During this period, whole families lived aboard the boats. They were often marginalized from land-based society and perceived as strange outsiders living a nomadic lifestyle.  

Decline

The last major canal to be built in Britain was the Manchester Ship Canal, which upon opening in 1894 was the largest ship canal in the world and opened Manchester as a port. However, it never achieved the commercial success its sponsors had hoped for and signaled that canals were a dying mode of transport.
From about 1840, railways began to threaten canals. Although they could not only carry more than the canals, they could transport people and goods far more quickly than the walking pace of the canal boats. Most of the investment that had previously gone into canal building was diverted into railway building.

Canal companies were unable to compete against the speed of the new railways and in order to survive they had to slash their prices. This put an end to the huge profits that canal companies had enjoyed and also had an effect on the boatmen who faced a drop in wages. Flyboat working virtually ceased, as it could not compete with the railways on speed and the boatmen found they could only afford to keep their families by taking them with them on the boats. 

By the 1850s, the railway system had become well established and the amount of cargo carried on the canals had fallen by nearly two-thirds. In many cases struggling canal companies were bought out by railway companies. Sometimes this was a tactical move by railway companies to close the canal company down and remove competition or to build a railway on the line of the canal. Larger canal companies survived independently and were able to continue to make profits. The canals survived through the 19th century largely by occupying the niches in the transport market that the railways had missed, or by supplying local markets such as the coal-hungry factories and mills of the big cities.

During the 19th century, in much of continental Europe the canal systems of many countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, were drastically modernized and widened to take much larger boats, often able to transport up to two thousand tonnes, compared to the thirty to one hundred tonnes that was possible on the much narrower British canals. As it is economic to transport freight by canal only if this is done in bulk, the widening ensured that in many of these countries, canal freight transport is still economically viable. This canal modernization never occurred on a large scale in Britain, mainly because of the power of the railway companies who owned most of the canals and saw no reason to invest in a competing and from their point of view obsolete form of transport. The only significant exception to this was the modernization carried out on the Grand Union Canal in the 1930s. 

25.5.2: The First Locomotives

As a result of advancements in metallurgy and steam power technology during the Industrial Revolution, horse-drawn wagonways were replaced by steam locomotives, making Britain the first country in the world with modern railways.

Learning Objective

Characterize the first trains and their utilities

Key Points

• The first recorded use of rail transport in
  Great Britain is Sir Francis Willoughby’s Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire, built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal. As early as 1671, railed roads were
  in use in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal.

  The
  primitive rails were superseded in 1793 when Benjamin Outram constructed a tramway with
  L-shaped flanged cast-iron plate rails (plateways). Outram’s rails were superseded by
  William Jessop’s cast iron edge rails. Cast
  iron rails had a propensity to break easily, and the short lengths soon became
  uneven. In 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling rails in
  greater lengths using wrought iron, which was used from then onward.

• The
  earliest railways were built and paid for by the owners of the mines they
  served. As railway technology developed, longer lines became possible,
  connecting mines with more distant transshipment points and promising lower
  costs. These longer lines often required public subscription to build and
  crossed over land not owned by the mine owners. As a result, they needed an Act
  of Parliament to build. The
  first line to obtain such an act, in 1758, was the Middleton Railway in Leeds. The first for public use and on cast iron rails
  was the Surrey Iron Railway, incorporated in 1799. The first
  passenger-carrying public railway was the Oystermouth Railway, authorized in
  1807.
• The first steam railway locomotive was
  introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804. Trevithick’s designs proved that
  steam traction was a viable proposition, although the use of his locomotives was
  quickly abandoned as they were too heavy for the existing track. The first commercially successful steam
  locomotive was the twin cylinder Salamanca, designed by in 1812 by
  Matthew Murray using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion for
  the Middleton Railway.
• The
  proprietors of Wylam Colliery wanted to abolish horse-drawn trains in favor of
  steam. Two models, Puffing
  Billy and Blücher, were among the first successful designs. In 1821 an Act
  of Parliament was approved for a tramway between Stockton and Darlington.

  Traffic on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was originally
  intended to be horse-drawn, but the Act was subsequently amended to allow the
  usage of steam locomotives. The railway was also empowered to carry passengers
  in addition to coal and general merchandise. 

• The
  first public steam railway in Scotland was the Monkland and Kirkintilloch
  Railway. The
  Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), founded as company in 1823 but
  opened in 1830, was the world’s first intercity passenger railway in which all
  the trains were timetabled and operated by steam locomotives. Further,
  horse-drawn traffic could use the Stockton and Darlington upon payment of a
  toll.
• To
  determine which locomotives would be suitable, the L&MR directors organized
  the Rainhill Trials. These were arranged as an open contest that would let them
  see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. The
  trials were won by Rocket, built by
  George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson. The
  Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the
  L&MR. The line opened in 1830 with termini at
  Liverpool Road, Manchester and Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Key Terms

rack and pinion railway

A steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with this rack rail. The first railway of this kind was the Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, UK, where the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, ran in 1812. This used a system designed and patented in 1811 by John Blenkinsop.

Stockton and Darlington Railway

A railway company that operated in northeast England from 1825 to 1863. It was the world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives. Its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington and was officially opened on September 27, 1825.

Liverpool and Manchester Railway

A railway that opened in 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom. It was the first railway to rely exclusively on steam power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double-track throughout its length; the first to have a signalling system; the first to be fully timetabled; the first to be powered entirely by its own motive power; and the first to carry mail.

Rainhill Trials

An important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Five engines competed, running back and forth along a mile length of level track at Rainhill in Lancashire (now Merseyside). Stephenson’s Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials and was declared the winner. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.

plateway

An early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway with a cast iron rail. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. They consisted of L-shaped rails where a flange on the rail guided the wheels in contrast to edgeways, where flanges on the wheels guide it along the track. They were originally horse-drawn, but cable haulage and locomotives were sometimes used later.

Salamanca

The first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812 by Matthew Murray of Holbeck
using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion,
for the edge-railed Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds. It was the first to have two cylinders. It was named after the Duke of Wellington’s victory at the battle of Salamanca which was fought that same year.

Early Rails 

The first recorded use of rail transport in Great Britain is Sir Francis Willoughby’s Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire, built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal. As early as 1671 railed roads were used in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal. The first of these was the Tanfield Wagon Way. Many of these tramroads or wagon ways were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. They used straight and parallel rails of timber on which carts with simple flanged iron wheels were drawn by horses, enabling several wagons to be moved simultaneously.

These primitive rails were superseded in 1793 when the then-superintendent of the Cromford Canal, Benjamin Outram, constructed a tramway with L-shaped flanged cast-iron plate rails (plateways) from the quarry at Crich. Wagons fitted with simple flangeless wheels were kept on the track by vertical ledges or plates. Cast-iron rails were a significant improvement over wooden rails as they could support a greater weight and the friction between wheel and rail was lower, allowing longer trains to be moved by horses. Outram’s rails were superseded by William Jessop’s cast iron edge rails where flanged wheels ran on the top edge of simple bar-shaped rails without the guiding ledges of Outram’s flanged plate rails. The rails were first employed in 1789 at Nanpantan at the Loughborough Charnwood Forest Canal.

Cast iron rails had a propensity to break easily, and the short lengths soon became uneven. In 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling rails in greater lengths using wrought iron which was used from then onward.

Early Railways

The earliest railways were built and paid for by the owners of the mines they served. As railway technology developed, longer lines became possible, connecting mines with more distant transshipment points and promising lower costs. These longer lines often required public subscription to build and crossed over land not owned by the mine owners. As a result, they needed an Act of Parliament to build. The Acts also protected investors from unrealistic or downright fraudulent schemes. The first line to obtain such an act, in 1758, was a private coal-owner’s wagonway, the Middleton Railway in Leeds. The first for public use and on cast iron rails was the Surrey Iron Railway incorporated in 1799. It obtained an Act of Parliament in 1801 to build a tramroad between Wandsworth and Croydon in what is now south London. The engineer was William Jessop. Meanwhile, the first passenger-carrying public railway was the Oystermouth Railway, authorized in 1807. All three of these railways were initially worked by horses. The Surrey Iron Railway remained horse-drawn throughout its life. The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway,
the first line in Scotland to carry passengers, was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1808 and was also built by Jessop. 

Introduction of Steam Locomotives

The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804. He was the first engineer to build a successful high-pressure stationary steam engine in 1799. He followed this with a road-going steam carriage in 1801. Although that experiment ended in failure, in 1804 he built a successful unnamed rail-going steam locomotive for the narrow-gauge Merthyr Tramroad in South Wales (sometimes incorrectly called the Penydarren Tramroad). Amid great interest from the public, in 1804 it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men a distance of 9.75 miles (15.69 km) from Penydarren to Abercynon in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of nearly 5 mph (8.0 km/h). This locomotive proved that steam traction was a viable proposition, although the use of the locomotive was quickly abandoned as it was too heavy for the primitive plateway track. A second locomotive, built for the Wylam colliery, also broke the track. Trevithick built another locomotive in 1808, Catch Me Who Can, which ran on a temporary demonstration railway in Bloomsbury, London. Members of the public were able to ride behind at speeds up to 12 mph (19 km/h). However, it again broke the rails and Trevithick was forced to abandon the demonstration after just two months.

The first commercially successful steam locomotive was the twin cylinder Salamanca, designed by in 1812 by
Matthew Murray
using John Blenkinsop’s patented design for rack propulsion for the Middleton Railway. Blenkinsop believed that a locomotive light enough to move under its own power would be too light to generate sufficient adhesion, so he designed a rack-and-pinion railway for the line. This was despite the fact that Trevithick demonstrated successful adhesion locomotives a decade before. The single rack ran outside the narrow-gauge edge-rail tracks and was engaged by a cog-wheel on the left side of the locomotive. The cog-wheel was driven by two cylinders embedded into the top of the center-flue boiler. Four such locomotives were built for the railway and they worked until the early 1830s.

Blenkinsop’s rack locomotive Salamanca, Middleton to Leeds (UK) coal tramway, 1812, author unknown, riginally published in The Mechanic’s Magazine, 1829.

Salamanca was the first commercially successful steam locomotive, built in 1812.

First Successful Railways

The proprietors of Wylam Colliery wanted to abolish horse-drawn trains in favor of steam. In 1804, William Hedley, a manager at the colliery, employed Trevithick to build a steam locomotive. However, it proved too heavy for the wooden track. William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth (another colliery employee) designed a locomotive in 1813 that became known as Puffing Billy. A year later George Stephenson, another of Wylam’s employees, improved the design with Blücher, the first locomotive to use flanged wheels keeping the locomotive on the track and had cylinder rods directly connected to the wheels in the manner of Catch Me Who Can.

In 1821 an Act of Parliament was approved for a tramway between Stockton and Darlington. Stephenson’s design convinced the backers of the proposed tramway to appoint Stephenson, who had recently built the Hetton colliery railway, as engineer. Traffic on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was originally intended to be horse-drawn, but Stephenson carried out a fresh survey of the route to allow steam haulage and the Act was subsequently amended to allow the usage of steam locomotives. The railway was also empowered to carry passengers in addition to coal and general merchandise. The line was 25 miles (40 km) in length and had 100 passing loops along its single track and four branch lines to collieries. It opened in 1825. The first train was hauled by Stephenson’s Locomotion No 1 at speeds of 12 to 15 miles per hour (19 to 24 km/h). Four locomotives named Locomotion were constructed and were effectively beam engines on wheels with vertical cylinders. 

Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, a watercolor painted in the 1880s by John Dobbin,

the National Railway Museum, York.

In the painting,
crowds are watching the inaugural train cross the Skerne Bridge in Darlington.
The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business and the line was soon extended to a new port and town at Middlesbrough. While coal wagons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.

The first public steam railway in Scotland was the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. An Act of Parliament authorizing the railway was passed in 1824 and it opened in 1826.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), founded as company in 1823 but opened in 1830, was the world’s first intercity passenger railway, in which all the trains were timetabled and operated by steam locomotives. Further, horse-drawn traffic could use the Stockton and Darlington upon payment of a toll. The passenger-carrying Canterbury and Whitstable Railway opened three months before the L&MR. However, it used cable haulage by stationary steam engines over much of its length, with steam locomotives restricted to the level stretch. The L&MR was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between the port of Liverpool and mills in Manchester in northwest England.

To determine which locomotives would be suitable, the L&MR directors organized the Rainhill Trials. These were arranged as an open contest that would let them see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. The trials were won by Rocket, built by George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson. Rocket was the first locomotive to use a multi-tubular boiler, which allowed more effective heat transfer from the exhaust gases to the water. It was also the first to use a blastpipe, where used steam from the cylinders discharges into the smokebox beneath the chimney to increase the draft of the fire. With these innovations, Rocket averaged 12 miles per hour (19 km/h) achieving a top speed of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the trials. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The line opened in 1830 with termini at Liverpool Road, Manchester and Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Later conjectural drawing of the Rainhill Trials: in the foreground is Rocket and in the background are Sans Pareil (right) and Novelty, author unknown, the Illustrated London News.

Stephenson’s Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the Rainhill Trials and was declared the winner. The Stephenson brothers were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.

25.5.3: Railways

The development of the railways, starting in the 1830s, transformed the economy and society by creating powerful railway companies, attracting massive investments, advancing industries, transforming human migration patterns, and even changing people’s daily diet. 

Learning Objective

Describe how railways spread and became common across the globe

Key Points

• The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) in 1830, the first to rely exclusively on steam power, revolutionized transportation and paved the way
  for the development of railways that would soon take over the world. A number of lines were approved in the Leeds area the same year. An unexpected enthusiasm for passenger travel resulted in opening the London and
  Birmingham Railway (L&BR) and the Grand Junction, linking the
  existing L&MR and the new L&BR in 1837.
• A new railway always needed an Act of
  Parliament, which typically cost over £200,000 to obtain, but opposition could
  effectively prevent its construction. The canal companies, unable or unwilling
  to upgrade their facilities to compete with railways, used political power to
  try to stop them. The railways responded by purchasing about a fourth of the
  canal system, in part to get the right of way and in part to buy off critics.
  Once an Act was obtained, there was little government regulation, as laissez
  faire and private ownership had become accepted practices. 
• The
  railways largely had exclusive territory, but given the compact size of
  Britain, this meant that two or more competing lines could connect major
  cities. Between the-mid 1830s and the mid-1940s, Parliament authorized 8,000 miles of lines at a projected cost of £200
  million. The incredible profitability of the railways attracted many investors together with massive financial speculation known as the Railway Mania.
• The
  financial success of the early railways was phenomenal, as they had no real
  competition. Less than 20 years after the Liverpool line opened, it was possible
  to travel from London to Scotland by train in a small fraction of the former
  time by road. Towards the end of the 19th century, competition became so fierce
  between companies on the east and west coast routes to Scotland that it led to
  what the press called the Race to the North. 
• The
  railways changed British society in numerous and complex ways, including a substantial impact in many spheres of economic activity. The
  building of railways and locomotives provided a significant stimulus to the coal-mining,
  iron-production, engineering, and construction industries. The railways also
  helped to reduce transaction costs, which in turn lowered the costs of goods, bringing positive changes to people’s diet. The
  railways were also a significant force for the changing patterns of human
  mobility. 
• The Government began to
  pay attention to safety matters with the 1840 Act for Regulating Railways,
  which empowered the Board of Trade to appoint railway inspectors. The Railway
  Inspectorate was established in 1840 to inquire into the causes of accidents
  and recommend ways of avoiding them. In 1844, minimum standards that would require
  railway companies to offer services to the poorer passengers on each
  railway roue at least once a day were introduced.

Key Terms

Liverpool and Manchester Railway

A railway that opened in 1830
between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the
United Kingdom. It was the first railway to rely exclusively on steam
power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be
entirely double-track throughout its length; the first to have a
signaling system; the first to be fully timetabled; the first to be
powered entirely by its own motive power; and the first to carry mail.

Parliamentary carriages

Passenger services required by an Act of Parliament passed in 1844 to allow inexpensive and basic railway travel for less affluent passengers. The legislation required that at least one such service per day be run on every railway route in the United Kingdom.

Race to the North

Name given by the press to the phenomenon that occurred during two summers of the late 19th century, when British passenger trains belonging to different companies would literally race each other from London to Scotland over the two principal rail trunk routes connecting the English capital city to Scotland: the West Coast Main Line and the East Coast Main Line.

Railway Mania

Speculative frenzy in Britain in the 1840s caused by the phenomenal profitability of the early railways.

Railway Clearing House

An organization set up in 1842 to manage the allocation of revenue collected by pre-grouping railway companies of fares and charges paid for passengers and goods travelling over the lines of other companies.

Railways: The Revolution of Transportation

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), opened in 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester, was not the first railway, but it was the first one to rely exclusively on steam power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double track throughout its length; the first to have a signaling system; the first to be fully timetabled; the first to be powered entirely by its own motive power; and the first to carry mail. As such, it revolutionized transportation and paved the way for the phenomenal development of railways that would soon take over the world. 

As Manchester had grown on cotton spinning, Leeds had a growing trade in weaving. The Pennines restricted canal development, so the railway provided a realistic alternative, especially with the growth in coal usage from the mines in the North East and Yorkshire. A number of lines were approved in the area, such as the Leeds and Selby Railway in 1830, which linked the former to the port of Hull via the River Ouse.

While the L&MR had not ousted the Lancashire canal system from the transport of goods, there was an unexpected enthusiasm for passenger travel. The financial success of the railway was beyond all expectations. Soon companies in London and Birmingham planned to build lines linking these cities together and with Liverpool and Manchester via the L&MR. These two lines were the London and Birmingham (L&BR), designed by Robert Stephenson, and the Grand Junction, engineered by Joseph Locke. The Grand Junction was designed to link the existing L&MR and the new L&BR. It opened in July 1837, with the L&BR following a few months later.

Although Acts of Parliament allowed railway companies compulsory purchase of wayleave, some powerful landowners objected to railways being built across their land and raised objections in Parliament to prevent bills from being passed. Some land owners charged excessive amounts, so early lines did not always follow the optimal routes. In addition, steep gradients were avoided as they would require more powerful locomotives. 

Railway Mania

It was legally required that each line be authorized by a separate Act of Parliament. While there were entrepreneurs with the vision of an intercity network of lines, it was much easier to find investors to back shorter stretches that were clearly defined in purpose, where rapid returns on investment could be predicted. A new railway needed an Act of Parliament, which typically cost over £200,000 to obtain, but opposition could effectively prevent its construction. The canal companies, unable or unwilling to upgrade their facilities to compete with railways, used political power to try to stop them. The railways responded by purchasing about a fourth of the canal system, in part to get the right of way and in part to buy off critics. Once an Act was obtained, there was little government regulation, as laissez faire and private ownership had become accepted practices. The railways largely had exclusive territory, but given the compact size of Britain, this meant that two or more competing lines could connect major cities. Between the-mid 1830s and the mid-1940s, the period of the railway boom, Parliament authorized 8,000 miles of lines at a projected cost of £200 million, which was about the same value as the country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) at that time.

George Hudson became the most important railway promoter of his time. Called the “railway king” of Britain, Hudson amalgamated numerous short lines and established the Railway Clearing House in 1842, an organization that provided uniform paperwork and standardized methods for apportioning fares while transferring passengers and freight between lines and loaning out freight cars. Hudson’s ability to design complex company and line amalgamations helped bring about the beginnings of a more modern railway network. In 1849, he exercised effective control over nearly 30% of the rail track operating in Britain, most of it owned by four railway groups: the Eastern Counties Railway, the Midland, the York, Newcastle and Berwick, and the York and North Midland. Hudson remains an important figure in railway history also because of a series of scandalous revelations that forced him out of office. The financial reporting malpractices of the Eastern Counties Railway while Hudson was its chairman eventually led to the collapse of his system. 

A railway junction diagram

When coaches or wagons owned by a different company were used, that company would be entitled to a proportion of the fare or fee. If the commencement and terminus of the journey were on different railways, a more complicated situation arose. If the two companies involved did not provide through ticketing, the passenger or goods needed to be re-booked at a junction station. If through booking was provided, the receipts collected by the first company needed to be divided between them, usually on a mileage basis. The Railway Clearing House was founded as a means by which these receipts could be apportioned fairly.

All the railways were promoted by commercial interests. As those opened by the year 1836 were paying good dividends, it prompted financiers to invest and by 1845 over 1,000 projected schemes had been put forward. This led to a speculative frenzy, following a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, more and more money was poured in by speculators, until the inevitable collapse in price. The Railway Mania, as it was called, reached its zenith in 1846, when no fewer than 272 Acts of Parliament setting up new railway companies were passed. Unlike most stock market bubbles, there was a net tangible result from all the investment in the form of a vast expansion of the British railway system, although perhaps at an inflated cost. When the government stepped in and announced closure for depositing schemes, the Railway Mania was brought to an end.

The legacy of Railway Mania can still be seen today, with duplication of some routes and cities possessing several stations on the same or different lines, sometimes with no direct connection between them (however, a significant amount of this duplication was removed by the Beeching Axe in the 1960s). The best example of this is London, which has no fewer than twelve main line terminal stations, serving its dense and complex suburban network. It is basically the result of the many railway companies during the Mania that were competing to run their routes in the capital.

Economic and Social Impact

The railway directors often had important political and social connections and used them to their companies’ advantages. Furthermore, landed aristocrats with established connections in London were especially welcome on the corporate boards. The aristocrats saw railway directorships as a socially acceptable form of contact with the world of commerce and industry. They leveraged the business acumen and connections gained through railways to join corporate boardrooms in other industries.

The financial success of the early railways was phenomenal as they had no real competition. The roads were still very slow and in poor condition. Prices of fuel and food fell in cities connected to railways in accordance with the fall in the cost of transport. The layout of lines with gentle gradients and curves, originating from the need to help the relatively weak engines and brakes, was a boon when speeds increased, avoiding for the most part the need to re-survey the course of a line. Less than 20 years after the Liverpool line opened, it was possible to travel from London to Scotland by train in a small fraction of the former time by road. Towards the end of the 19th century, competition became so fierce between companies on the east and west coast routes to Scotland that it led to what the press called the Race to the North.
In two summers of the late 19th century, passenger trains belonging to different companies would literally race each other from London to Scotland over the two principal rail trunk routes connecting the English capital city to Scotland. The races were never official and publicly the companies denied that what happened was racing at all. Results were not announced officially and the outcomes have since been hotly debated. 

The railways changed British society in numerous and complex ways. Although recent attempts to measure the economic significance of the railways have suggested that their overall contribution to the growth of GDP was more modest than an earlier generation of historians argued, it is nonetheless clear that the railways had a sizable impact in many spheres of economic activity. The building of railways and locomotives, for example, called for large quantities of heavy materials and thus provided significant stimulus to the coal-mining, iron-production, engineering, and construction industries. The railways also helped reduce transaction costs, which in turn lowered the costs of goods. The distribution and sale of perishable goods such as meat, milk, fish, and vegetables was transformed, giving rise not only to cheaper produce in the stores but also to far greater variety in people’s diets.

The railways were also a significant force for the changing patterns of human mobility. Rail transport had originally been conceived as a way of moving coal and industrial goods but the railway operators quickly realized the potential for market for railway travel, leading to an extremely rapid expansion in passenger services. The number of railway passengers tripled in just eight years between 1842 and 1850. Traffic volumes roughly doubled in the 1850s and then doubled again in the 1860s. In the words of historian Derek Aldcroft, “In terms of mobility and choice [the railways] added a new dimension to everyday life.”

Government Involvement

While it had been necessary to obtain an Act of Parliament to build a new railway, the government initially took a laissez faire approach to their construction and operation. The state began to pay attention to safety matters with the 1840 Act for Regulating Railways, which empowered the Board of Trade to appoint railway inspectors. The Railway Inspectorate was established in 1840 to inquire into the causes of accidents and recommend ways of avoiding them.
Colonel Frederic Smith conducted the first investigation into five deaths caused by a large casting falling from a moving train in 1840 (Howden rail crash). He also conducted an inquiry into the derailment on the GWR when a mixed goods and passenger train derailed on Christmas Eve, 1841. As early as 1844 a bill had been put before Parliament suggesting the state purchase the railways, but it was not adopted. It did, however, lead to the introduction of minimum standards that would require railway companies to offer services available to the poorer passengers on each railway roue at least once a day (so-called Parliamentary carriages or trains).

Great Western Railway open passenger car

In the earliest days of passenger railways in Britain, the poor were encouraged to travel to find employment in the growing industrial centers, but trains were generally unaffordable to them except in the most basic of open wagons, in many cases attached to goods trains. The Railway Regulation Act, which took effect in 1844, compelled “the provision of at least one train a day each way at a speed of not less than 12 miles an hour including stops, which were to be made at all stations, and of carriages protected from the weather and provided with seats; for all which luxuries not more than a penny a mile might be charged.”

The commercial interests of the early railway industry were often of a local nature and there was never a nationwide plan to develop a logical network of railways. Some railways, however, began to grow faster than others, often taking over smaller lines to expand their own. The L&MR success led to the idea of linking Liverpool to London, and from that the seeds of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR), an amalgamation of four hitherto separate enterprises, including the L&MR, were sown. 

25.6: Social Change

25.6.1: The Factory System

The factory system, fueled by technological progress, made production much faster, cheaper, and more uniform, but also disconnected the workers from the means of production and placed them under the control of powerful industrialists. 

Learning Objective

Describe the factory system and how it functioned

Key Points

• One
  of the earliest factories was John Lombe’s water-powered silk mill at Derby,
  operational by 1721. By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley
  near Bristol. Matthew Boulton at his Soho Manufactory, which started operating in
  1766, was among the pioneers of mass production on the assembly
  line principle, while Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire opened the first
  true ceramics factory in 1769. 
• The factory system began to grow rapidly when
  cotton spinning was mechanized. Richard Arkwright, the founder of the first
  successful cotton spinning factory in the world, is credited with
  inventing the prototype of the modern factory. Other industrialists and industries followed, introducing novel practices that advanced the factory system, including mass production using interchangeable parts or modern materials such as cranes and rail
  tracks through the buildings for handling heavy items.
• The major characteristics of factory system are that is a capitalist form of production, where the labor
  does not own a significant share of the enterprise; the capitalist owners
  provide the means of production and are responsible for the sale; production relies on
  unskilled labor; products are produced on a much larger scale
  than in either the putting-out or crafts systems; the location of production is more flexible; precisely uniform components are produced thanks to machinery; workers are paid either daily wages or for piece work, either in the form of money or
  a combination of money, goods, and services. 
• The factory system was a new way of organizing
  labor made necessary by the development of machines, which were too large to
  house in a worker’s cottage. Working hours were as long as they had been for
  the farmer: from dawn to dusk, six days per week. Factories also
  essentially reduced skilled and unskilled workers to replaceable commodities.
  Debate arose concerning the morality of the
  factory system, as workers complained about unfair working conditions.
• The
  transition to industrialization was not without difficulty. For example, a
  group of English textile workers known as Luddites protested against
  industrialization and sometimes sabotaged factories. They feared that the years workers spent learning a craft
  would go to waste and unskilled machine operators would rob them of their
  livelihood. However, in many industries the transition to factory production
  was not so divisive.
• One of the best-known accounts of factory
  worker’s living conditions during the Industrial Revolution is Friedrich
  Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Since then, the historical debate on the
  question of living conditions of factory workers has been very controversial.
  While some have pointed out that industrialization slowly improved the living
  standards of workers, others have concluded
  that living standards for the majority of the population did not grow
  meaningfully until much later.

Key Terms

Luddites

A group of English textile
workers and self-employed weavers in the 19th century that used the destruction
of machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of
machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around
standard labor practices. They were fearful that the years they spent
learning the craft would go to waste and unskilled machine operators would rob
them of their livelihoods.

putting-out system

A means of subcontracting work,
historically known also as the workshop system and the domestic system. Work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the
work in off-site facilities, either in their own homes or in workshops with
multiple craftsmen.

factory system

A method of manufacturing using
machinery and division of labor, first adopted in Britain at the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century and later spread around the
world. Use of machinery with the division of labor reduced the required skill
level of workers and increased the output per worker.

truck system

An arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities or some currency substitute (such as vouchers or token coins, called in some dialects scrip or chit) rather than with standard currency.

Growth of Factories

One of the earliest factories was John Lombe’s water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley near Bristol. Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass, then  turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods. Housing was provided for workers on site. Matthew Boulton at his Soho Manufactory, which started operating in 1766, was among the pioneers of mass production on the assembly line principle while Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire opened the first true ceramics factory in 1769. 

The factory system began to grow rapidly when cotton spinning was mechanized. Richard Arkwright,
the founder of the first successful cotton spinning factory in the world, is credited with inventing the prototype of the modern factory. After he patented his water frame in 1769, he established Cromford Mill in Derbyshire, England, significantly expanding the village of Cromford to accommodate the migrant workers new to the area.
Mass production using interchangeable parts was first achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslay and Simon Goodrich, for the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War. This method did not catch on in general manufacturing in Britain for many decades; when it did, it was imported from the United States, becoming known as the American system of manufacturing. The Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company’s Bridgewater Foundry, which began operation in 1836, was one of the earliest factories to use modern materials handling, such as cranes and rail tracks through the buildings for heavy items.

Between 1820 and 1850, mechanized factories supplanted traditional artisan shops as the predominant form of manufacturing institution, because the larger-scale factories enjoyed a significant technological advantage over the small artisan shops. The earliest factories under the factory system developed in the cotton and wool textiles industry. Later generations of factories included mechanized shoe production and manufacturing of machinery, including machine tools. Factories that supplied the railroad industry included rolling mills, foundries, and locomotive works. Agricultural-equipment factories produced cast-steel plows and reapers. Bicycles were mass-produced beginning in the 1880s.

The Cromford Mill (opened in 1771) today

Richard Arkwright is the person credited with inventing the prototype of the modern factory. After he patented his water frame in 1769, he established Cromford Mill, in Derbyshire, England, significantly expanding the village of Cromford to accommodate the migrant workers new to the area.
It laid the foundation of Arkwright’s fortune and was quickly copied by mills in Lancashire, Germany and the United States.

Characteristics of Factory System

The factory system, considered a capitalist form of production, differs dramatically from the earlier systems of production. First, the labor generally does not own a significant share of the enterprise. The capitalist owners provide all machinery, buildings, management and administration, and raw or semi-finished materials, and are responsible for the sale of all production as well as any resulting losses.
The cost and complexity of machinery, especially that powered by water or steam, was more than cottage industry workers could afford or had the skills to maintain. Second, production relies on unskilled labor. Before the factory system, skilled craftsmen would usually custom-made an entire article. In contrast, factories practiced division of labor, in which most workers were either lowskilled laborers who tended or operated machinery, or unskilled laborers who moved materials and semi-finished and finished goods. Third, factories produced products on a much larger scale than in either the putting-out or crafts systems. 

The factory system also made the location of production much more flexible. Before the widespread use of steam engines and railroads, most factories were located at water power sites and near water transportation. When railroads became widespread, factories could be located away from water power sites but nearer railroads. Workers and machines were brought together in a central factory complex. Although the earliest factories were usually all under one roof, different operations were sometimes on different floors. Further, machinery made it possible to produce precisely uniform components.  

Workers were paid either daily wages or for piece work, either in the form of money or some combination of money, housing, meals, and goods from a company store (the truck system). Piece work presented accounting difficulties, especially as volumes increased and workers did a narrower scope of work on each piece. Piece work went out of favor with the advent of the production line, which was designed on standard times for each operation in the sequence and workers had to keep up with the work flow.

Factory System and Society

The factory system was a new way of organizing labor made necessary by the development of machines, which were too large to house in a worker’s cottage. Working hours were as long as they had been for the farmer: from dawn to dusk, six days per week. Factories also essentially reduced skilled and unskilled workers to replaceable commodities. At the farm or in the cottage industry, each family member and worker was indispensable to a given operation and workers had to posses knowledge and often advanced skills that resulted from years of learning through practice. Conversely, under the factory system, workers were easily replaceable as skills required to operate machines could be acquired very quickly. Factory workers typically lived within walking distance to work until the introduction of bicycles and electric street railways in the 1890s. Thus, the factory system was partly responsible for the rise of urban living, as large numbers of workers migrated into the towns in search of employment in the factories. Many mills had to provide dormitories for workers, especially for girls and women.

Much manufacturing in the 18th century was carried out in homes under the domestic or putting-out system, especially the weaving of cloth and spinning of thread and yarn, often with just a single loom or spinning wheel. As these devices were mechanized, machine-made goods were able to underprice the cottagers, leaving them unable to earn enough to make their efforts worthwhile.

The transition to industrialization was not without difficulty. For example, a group of English textile workers known as Luddites protested against industrialization and sometimes sabotaged factories. They continued an already established tradition of workers opposing labor-saving machinery. Numerous inventors in the textile industry suffered harassment when developing their machines or devices. Despite the common stereotype of Luddites as opponent of progress, the group was in fact protesting the use of
machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around
standard labor practices. They feared that the years workers had spent
learning a craft would go to waste and unskilled machine operators would rob
them of their livelihoods. However, in many industries the transition to factory production was not so divisive.

Frame-breakers, or Luddites, smashing a loom 

Machine-breaking was criminalized by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as early as 1721. Parliament subsequently made “machine breaking” (i.e. industrial sabotage) a capital crime with the Frame Breaking Act of 1812 and the Malicious Damage Act of 1861. Lord Byron opposed this legislation, becoming one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites.

Debate arose concerning the morality of the factory system, as workers complained about unfair working conditions. One of the problems concerned women’s labor. Women were always paid less than men and in many cases, as little as a quarter of what men made. Child labor was also a major part of the system. However, in the early 19th century, education was not compulsory and in working families, children’s wages were seen as a necessary contribution to the family budget. Automation in the late 19th century is credited with ending child labor and according to many historians, it was more effective than gradually changing child labor laws. Years of schooling began to increase sharply from the end of the 19th century, when elementary state-provided education for all became a viable concept (with the Prussian and Austrian empires as pioneers of obligatory education laws). Some industrialists themselves tried to improve factory and living conditions for their workers. One of the earliest such reformers was Robert Owen, known for his pioneering efforts in improving conditions for workers at the New Lanark mills and often regarded as one of the key thinkers of the early socialist movement.

One of the best-known accounts of factory
worker’s living conditions during the Industrial Revolution is Friedrich
Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. In
it, Engels described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns
where people lived in crude shanties and shacks, some not completely enclosed,
some with dirt floors. These shanty towns had narrow walkways between
irregularly shaped lots and dwellings. There were no sanitary facilities.
Population density was extremely high. Eight to ten unrelated mill workers
often shared a room with no furniture and slept on a pile of straw or
sawdust. Disease spread through a contaminated water supply. By the late 1880s, Engels noted that the extreme poverty and lack of sanitation he wrote about in
1844 had largely disappeared. Since then, the historical debate on the question
of living conditions of factory workers has been very controversial. While some
have pointed out that living conditions of the poor workers were tragic
everywhere and industrialization, in fact, slowly improved the living standards
of a steadily increasing number of workers, others have concluded that living
standards for the majority of the population did not grow meaningfully until
the late 19th and 20th centuries and that in many ways workers’ living
standards declined under early capitalism.

25.6.2: Urbanization

Industrialization and emergence of the factory system triggered rural-to-urban migration and thus led to a rapid growth of cities, where during the Industrial Revolution workers faced the challenge of dire conditions and developed new ways of living. 

Learning Objective

Connect the development of factories to urbanization

Key Points

• Industrialization
  led to the creation of the factory, and the factory system contributed to the
  growth of urban areas as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in
  search of work in the factories. In England and Wales, the proportion of the population living in
  cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.
• In 1844, Friedrich Engels published The
  Condition of the Working Class in England, arguably the most important
  record of how workers lived during the early era of industrialization in
  British cities. He described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns where people
  lived in crude shanties and overcrowded shacks, constantly exposed to contagious diseases. These conditions
  improved over the course of the 19th century.
• Before the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture
  or technology led to an increase in population, which again strained food and
  other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is
  called the Malthusian trap and according to some economists, it was overcome
  by the Industrial Revolution. Transportation advancements lowered transaction and food costs, improved distribution, and made more varied foods available in cities. 
• The historical debate on the question of living conditions of
  factory workers has been very controversial. While some have pointed out that
  industrialization slowly improved the living standards of workers, others have
  concluded that living standards for the majority of the population did not grow
  meaningfully until much later.
• Not everyone lived in poor conditions and
  struggled with the challenges of rapid industrialization. The Industrial
  Revolution also created a middle class of industrialists and professionals who
  lived in much better conditions. In fact, one of the earlier definitions of the
  middle class equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist:
  someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles.
• During the Industrial Revolution, the family structure changed. Marriage
  shifted to a more sociable union between wife and husband
  in the laboring class. Women and men tended to marry someone from the same job,
  geographical location, or social group. Factories and mills also undermined the old patriarchal
  authority to a certain extent. Women working in factories faced many new challenges, including limited child-raising opportunities. 

Key Terms

Agricultural Revolution

The unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the century to 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales.

Malthusian trap

The putative unsustainability of improvements in a society’s standard of living because of population growth. It is named for Thomas Robert Malthus, who suggested that while technological advances could increase a society’s supply of resources such as food and thereby improve the standard of living, the resource abundance would encourage population growth, which would eventually bring the per capita supply of resources back to its original level. Some economists contend that since the Industrial Revolution, mankind has broken out of the trap. Others argue that the continuation of extreme poverty indicates that the Malthusian trap continues to operate.

Cottonopolis

A metropolis centered on cotton trading servicing the cotton mills in its hinterland. It was originally applied to Manchester, England, because of its status as the international center of the cotton and textile trade during the Industrial Revolution.

Factories and Urbanization

Industrialization led to the creation of the factory and the factory system contributed to the growth of urban areas as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of work in the factories. Nowhere was this better illustrated than in Manchester,
the world’s first industrial city,
nicknamed Cottonopolis because of its mills and associated industries that made it the global center of the textile industry. Manchester experienced a six-times increase in its population between 1771 and 1831. It had a population of 10,000 in 1717, but by 1911 it had burgeoned to 2.3 million. Bradford grew by 50% every ten years between 1811 and 1851 and by 1851 only 50% of the population of Bradford was actually born there.
In England and Wales, the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.

Manchester known as Cottonopolis, pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys,
Engraving by Edward Goodall (1795-1870), original title Manchester, from Kersal Moor after a painting of W. Wylde.

Although initially inefficient, the arrival of steam power signified the beginning of the mechanization that would enhance the burgeoning textile industries in Manchester into the world’s first center of mass production. As textile manufacture switched from the home to factories, Manchester and towns in south and east Lancashire became the largest and most productive cotton spinning center in the world in 1871, with 32% of global cotton production.

Standards of Living

Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is arguably the most important record of how workers lived during the early era of industrialization in British cities. Engels, who remains one of the most important philosophers of the 19th century but also came from a family of wealthy industrialists, described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns where people lived in crude shanties and shacks, some not completely enclosed, some with dirt floors. These towns had narrow walkways between irregularly shaped lots and dwellings. There were no sanitary facilities. Population density was extremely high. Eight to ten unrelated mill workers often shared a room with no furniture and slept on a pile of straw or sawdust. Toilet facilities were shared if they existed. Disease spread through a contaminated water supply. New urbanites—especially small children—died due to diseases spreading because of the cramped living conditions. Tuberculosis, lung diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water, and typhoid were all common.

The original title page of
The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1944, published in German in Leipzig in 1845. 

Engels’ interpretation proved to be extremely influential with British historians of the Industrial Revolution. He focused on both the workers’ wages and their living conditions. He argued that the industrial workers had lower incomes than their pre-industrial peers and lived in more unhealthy environments. This proved to be a wide-ranging critique of industrialization and one that was echoed by many of the Marxist historians who studied the industrial revolution in the 20th century.

Conditions improved over the course of the 19th century due to new public health acts regulating things like sewage, hygiene, and home construction. In the introduction of his 1892 edition, Engels notes that most of the conditions he wrote about in 1844 had been greatly improved.

Chronic hunger and malnutrition were the norm for the majority of the population of the world, including Britain and France, until the late 19th century. Until about 1750, in part due to malnutrition, life expectancy in France was about 35 years, and only slightly higher in Britain. In Britain and the Netherlands, food supply had been increasing and prices falling before the Industrial Revolution due to better agricultural practices (Agricultural Revolution). 

However, population grew as well. Before the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture or technology led to an increase in population, which again strained food and other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is called the Malthusian trap and according to some economists, it was overcome by the Industrial Revolution. Transportation improvements, such as canals and improved roads, also lowered food costs. The post-1830 rapid development of railway further reduced transaction costs, which in turn lowered the costs of goods, including food. The distribution and sale of perishable goods such as meat, milk, fish, and vegetables was transformed by the emergence of the railways, giving rise not only to cheaper produce in the shops but also to far greater variety in people’s diets.

The question of how living conditions changed in the newly industrialized urban environment has been very controversial. A series of 1950s essays by Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population at the bottom of the social ladder suffered severe reductions in their living standards. Conversely, economist Robert E. Lucas, Jr., argues that the real impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standards of living of the poorest segments of the society gradually, if slowly, improved. Others, however, have noted that while growth of the economy’s overall productive powers was unprecedented during the Industrial Revolution, living standards for the majority of the population did not grow meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries and that in many ways workers’ living standards declined under early capitalism. For instance, studies have shown that real wages in Britain increased only 15% between the 1780s and 1850s and that life expectancy in Britain did not begin to dramatically increase until the 1870s.

Not everyone lived in poor conditions and struggled with the challenges of rapid industrialization. The Industrial Revolution also created a middle class of industrialists and professionals who lived in much better conditions.
In fact, one of the earlier definitions of the middle class equated it to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. To be a capital-owning millionaire was an important criterion of the middle class during the Industrial Revolution although the period witnessed also a growth of a class of professionals (e.g., lawyers, doctors, small business owners) who did not share the fate of the early industrial working class and enjoyed a comfortable standard of living in growing cities. 

Changes in Family Structure

In the laboring class at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, women traditionally married men of the same social status (e.g., a shoemaker’s daughter would marry a shoemaker’s son). Marriage outside this norm was not common. During the Industrial Revolution, marriage shifted from this tradition to a more sociable union between wife and husband in the laboring class. Women and men tended to marry someone from the same job, geographical location, or ocial group. Miners remained an exception to this trend and a coal miner’s daughter still tended to marry a coal miner’s son.

The rural pre-industrial work sphere was usually shaped by the father, who controlled the pace of work for his family. However, factories and mills undermined the old patriarchal authority to a certain extent. Factories put husbands, wives, and children under the same conditions and authority of the manufacturer masters. In the latter half of the Industrial Revolution, women who worked in factories or mills tended not to have children or had children that were old enough to take care of themselves,  as life in the city made it impossible to take a child to work (unlike in the case of farm labor or cottage industry where women were more flexible to combine domestic and work spheres) and deprived women of a traditional network of support established in rural communities.

25.6.3: Labor Conditions

During the Industrial Revolution, laborers in factories, mills, and mines worked long hours under very dangerous conditions, though historians continue to debate the extent to which those conditions worsened the fate of the worker in pre-industrial society.

Learning Objective

Review the conditions workers labored under in the early factories

Key Points

• As a result of industrialization, ordinary
  working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills
  and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long
  hours of labor dominated by a pace set by machines. The nature of work changed
  from a craft production model to a factory-centric model.
• In the
  textile industry, factories set hours of work and the machinery within them shaped
  the pace of work. Factories brought workers together within one building and increased the division of
  labor, narrowing the number and scope of tasks and including children and women
  within a common production process. Maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from
  overwork and contagious diseases were common in the enclosed
  conditions of cotton mills. Children were particularly vulnerable. 
• Work discipline was forcefully instilled
  upon the workforce by the factory owners, and the working conditions were
  dangerous and even deadly. Early industrial factories and mines created
  numerous health risks, and injury compensation for the workers did not exist.
  Machinery accidents could lead to burns, arm and leg injuries,
  amputation of fingers and limbs, and death. However, diseases were the most
  common health issues that had long-term effects. 
• Mining
  has always been especially dangerous, and at the beginning of the 19th century,
  methods of coal extraction exposed men, women, and children to very risky
  conditions. In 1841, about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and
  children worked underground for 11-12 hours a day. The public became aware of
  conditions in the country’s collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar
  Colliery in Silkstone. The disaster came
  to the attention of Queen Victoria who ordered an inquiry. 
• Lord Ashley headed
  the royal commission of inquiry, which investigated the conditions of workers,
  especially children, in the coal mines in 1840. Commissioners visited
  collieries and mining communities gathering information, sometimes against the
  mine owners’ wishes. The report, illustrated by engraved illustrations and the
  personal accounts of mine workers, was published in 1842. The investigation led to
  passing one of the earlier pieces of labor legislation: the Mines and
  Collieries Act of 1842. It prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old
  from working underground in coal mines.
• Over time, more men than
  women would find that industrial employment and industrial wages provided a
  higher level of material security than agricultural employment. Consequently,
  women would be
  left behind in less-profitable agriculture. By the late 1860s, very low wages
  in agricultural work turned women to industrial employment on assembly lines, providing
  industrial laundry services, and in the textile mills. Women were never paid the same wage as a man for the same work.

Key Terms

Mines and Collieries Act

An 1842 act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines. It was a response to the working conditions of children revealed in the Children’s Employment Commission (Mines) 1842 report.

hurrier

A child or woman employed by a collier to transport the coal that they had mined. Women would normally get the children to help them because of the difficulty of carrying the coal. Common particularly in the early 19th century, they pulled a corf (basket or small wagon) full of coal along roadways as small as 16 inches in height. They would often work 12-hour shifts, making several runs down to the coal face and back to the surface again.

Industrial Working Practices 

As a result of industrialization, ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labor dominated by a pace set by machines.

The nature of work changed from a craft production model to a factory-centric model. Between the 1760s and 1850, factories organized workers’ lives much differently than did craft production. The textile industry, central to the Industrial Revolution, serves as an illustrative example of these changes. Prior to industrialization, handloom weavers worked at their own pace, with their own tools, within their own cottages. Now, factories set hours of work and the machinery within them shaped the pace. Factories brought workers together within one building to work on machinery that they did not own. They also increased the division of labor, narrowing the number and scope of tasks and including children and women within a common production process.
The early textile factories employed a large share of children and women.
In 1800, there were 20,000 apprentices (usually pauper children) working in cotton mills. The apprentices were particularly vulnerable to maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from overwork and widespread contagious diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, and typhus. The enclosed conditions (to reduce the frequency of thread breakage, cotton mills were usually very warm and as draft-free as possible) and close contact within mills and factories allowed contagious diseases to spread rapidly. Typhoid was spread through poor sanitation in mills and the settlements around them.

In all industries, women and children made significantly lower wages than men for the same work.

A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835. Illustrator T. Allom in History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain by Sir Edward Baines.

In reference to the growing number of women in the textile industry, Friedrich Engels argued the family structure was “turned upside down” as women’s wages undercut men’s, forcing men to “sit at home” and care for children while the wife worked long hours. Historical records have shown, however, that women working the same long hours under the same dangerous conditions as men never made the same wages as men and the patriarchal model of the family was hardly undermined. 

Work discipline was forcefully instilled upon the workforce by the factory owners and the working conditions were dangerous and even deadly. Early industrial factories and mines created numerous health risks, and injury compensation for the workers did not exist. Machinery accidents could lead to burns, arm and leg injuries, amputation of fingers and limbs, and death. However, diseases were the most common health issues that had long-term effects. Cotton mills, coal mines, iron-works, and brick factories all had bad air, which caused chest diseases, coughs, blood-spitting, hard breathing, pains in chest, and insomnia. Workers usually toiled extremely long hours, six days a week. However, it is important to note that historians continue to debate the question of to what extent early industrialization worsened and to what extent it improved the fate of the workers, as working practices and conditions in the pre-industrial society were similarly difficult. Child labor, dangerous working conditions, and long hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.

Mining
has always been especially dangerous and at the beginning of the 19th century, methods of coal extraction exposed men, women, and children to very risky conditions. In 1841, about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and children worked underground for 11-12 hours a day. The public became aware of conditions in the country’s collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms, causing the death of 26 children, 11 girls ages 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age. The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who ordered an inquiry. Lord Ashley headed the royal commission of inquiry, which investigated the conditions of workers, especially children, in the coal mines in 1840. Commissioners visited collieries and mining communities gathering information, sometimes against the mine owners’ wishes. The report, illustrated by engraved illustrations and the personal accounts of mine workers, was published in 1842. The middle class and elites were shocked to learn that children as young as five or six worked as trappers, opening and shutting ventilation doors down the mine before becoming hurriers, pushing and pulling coal tubs and corfs. The investigation led to
one of the earlier pieces of labor legislation: the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842. It prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines.

Working-Class Women

Before the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, women (and children) worked underground as hurriers who carted tubs of coal up through the narrow mine shafts. In Wolverhampton, the law did not have much of an impact on women’s mining employment because they mainly worked above-ground at the coal mines, sorting coal, loading canal boats, and other surface tasks. Over time, more men than women would find industrial employment, and industrial wages provided a higher level of material security than agricultural employment. Consequently, women, who were traditionally involved in all agricultural labor, would be left behind in less-profitable agriculture. By the late 1860s, very low wages in agricultural work turned women to industrial employment.

In industrialized areas, women could find employment on assembly lines, providing industrial laundry services, and in the textile mills that sprang up during the Industrial Revolution in such cities as Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham. Spinning and winding wool, silk, and other types of piecework were a common way of earning income by working from home, but wages were very low and hours long. Often 14 hours per day were needed to earn enough to survive. Needlework was the single highest-paid occupation for women working from home, but the work paid little and women often had to rent sewing machines that they could not afford to buy. These home manufacturing industries became known as “sweated industries” (think of today’s sweat shops). The Select Committee of the House of Commons defined sweated industries in 1890 as “work carried on for inadequate wages and for excessive hours in unsanitary conditions.” By 1906, such workers earned about a penny an hour. Women were never paid the same wage as a man for the same work, despite the fact that they were as likely as men to be married and supporting children. 

25.6.4: Child Labor

Although child labor was widespread prior to industrialization, the exploitation of child workforce intensified during the Industrial Revolution.

Learning Objective

Indicate the circumstances leading to the use of industrial child labor 

Key Points

• With
  the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century,
  there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labor, including
  child labor. Child
  labor became the labor of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the
  Industrial Revolution because children were paid much less while being as productive as adults and were more vulnerable. Their smaller size was also perceived as an
  advantage.
• Children as young as four were employed in
  production factories and mines working long hours in dangerous, often fatal
  conditions. In coal mines, children would crawl through tunnels too
  narrow and low for adults. They also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers,
  shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers, and other cheap goods.
• Many
  children were forced to work in very poor conditions for much lower pay than
  their elders, usually 10–20% of an adult male’s wage. Beatings and long hours were common, with some child coal miners
  and hurriers working from 4 a.m. until 5 p.m. Many children developed lung cancer and other
  diseases. Death before age 25 was common for child workers. 
• Workhouses would sell orphans and abandoned
  children as “pauper apprentices,” working without wages for board and
  lodging. In 1800, there were 20,000 apprentices working in cotton mills. The
  apprentices were particularly vulnerable to maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from overwork, and contagious diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, and typhus.
• The first legislation in response to the abuses
  experienced by child laborers did not even attempt to ban child labor, but
  merely improve working conditions for some child workers. The Health and Morals
  of Apprentices Act 1802 was designed
  to improve conditions for apprentices working in cotton mills. It was not until 1819 that an Act to limit the hours of work and set a minimum
  age for free children working in cotton mills was piloted through Parliament.
• A series of acts limiting provisions under which children could be employed followed the two largely ineffective Acts of 1802 and 1819, including
  the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, the
  Factories Act 1844, and the Factories
  Act 1847. The last two major factory acts of the Industrial Revolution
  were introduced in 1850 and 1856. Factories could no longer dictate work hours
  for women and children.

Key Terms

Cotton Mills and Factories Act of 1819

An 1819 Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that stated that no children under 9 were to be employed and that children aged 9–16 years were limited to 12 hours’ work per day. It applied to the cotton industry only, but covered all children, whether apprentices or not. It was seen through Parliament by Sir Robert Peel but   had its origins in a draft prepared by Robert Owen in 1815. The Act that emerged in 1819 was watered down from Owen’s draft.

Mines and Collieries Act 1842

An 1842 act of the Parliament
of the United Kingdom that prohibited banned) all girls and boys younger than age 10 from working underground in coal mines. It was a response to the
working conditions of children revealed in the Children’s Employment Commission
(Mines) 1842 report.

Second Industrial Revolution

A phase of rapid industrialization in the final third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Although a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts, and the invention of the Bessemer Process, it is generally dated between 1870 and 1914.

hurrier

A child or woman employed by a collier to
transport the coal that they had mined. Women would normally get the
children to help them because of the difficulty of carrying the coal. Common
particularly in the early 19th century, they pulled a corf (basket or
small wagon) full of coal along roadways as small as 16 inches in height.
They would often work 12-hour shifts, making several runs down to the coal face
and back to the surface again.

Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802

An
1802 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, sometimes known as the Factory Act 1802, was designed to improve conditions for apprentices working in cotton mills. The Act was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, who became concerned with the issue after an 1784 outbreak of a “malignant fever” at one of his cotton mills, which he later blamed on “gross mismanagement” by his subordinates.

The Industrial Child Workforce 

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labor, including child labor. The population grew and although
chances of surviving childhood did not improve, infant mortality rates decreased markedly. Education opportunities for working-class families were limited and children were expected to contribute to family budgets just like adult family members. Child labor became the labor of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children. Employers paid a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable. There was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine and since the industrial system was completely new, there were no experienced adult laborers. Factory and mine owners preferred child labor also because they perceived the child workers’ smaller size as an advantage. In textile factories, children were desired because of their supposed “nimble fingers,” while low and narrow mine galleries made children particularly effective mine workers. 

The Victorian era (overlapping with approximately the last decade of the Industrial Revolution and largely with what is known as the Second Industrial Revolution) in particular became notorious for the conditions, under which children were employed. Children as young as four worked long hours in production factories and mines in dangerous, often fatal conditions. In coal mines, children would crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. They also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers, and other cheap goods. Some children undertook work as apprentices to trades considered respectable, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid-18th century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80-hour weeks.

A young drawer pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery, source unknown.

Agile boys were employed by the chimney sweeps. Small children were employed to scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins and in coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. Many young people worked as prostitutes (the majority of prostitutes in London were between 15 and 22 years of age).

Labor Conditions

Child labor existed long before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education, it became more visible. Furthermore, unlike in agriculture and cottage industries where children often contributed to the family operation, children in the industrial employment were independent workers with no protective mechanisms in place. Many children were forced to work in very poor conditions for much lower pay than their elders, usually 10–20% of an adult male’s wage. Children as young as four were employed. Beatings and long hours were common, with some child coal miners and hurriers working from 4 a.m. until 5 p.m. Conditions were dangerous, with some children killed when they dozed off and fell into the path of the carts, while others died from gas explosions. Many children developed lung cancer and other diseases. Death before the age of 25 was common for child workers. 

Those child laborers who ran away would be whipped and returned to their masters, with some masters shackling them to prevent escape. Children employed as mule scavengers by cotton mills would crawl under machinery to pick up cotton, working 14 hours a day, six days a week. Some lost hands or limbs, others were crushed under the machines, and some were decapitated. Young girls worked at match factories, where phosphorus fumes would cause many to develop phossy jaw, an extremely painful condition that disfigured the patient and eventually caused brain damage, with dying bone tissue accompanied by a foul-smelling discharge. Children employed at glassworks were regularly burned and blinded, and those working at potteries were vulnerable to poisonous clay dust.

Workhouses would sell orphans and abandoned children as “pauper apprentices,” working without wages for board and lodging.
In 1800, there were 20,000 apprentices working in cotton mills. The apprentices were particularly vulnerable to maltreatment, industrial accidents, and ill health from overwork and contagious diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, and typhus. The enclosed conditions (to reduce the frequency of thread breakage, cotton mills were usually very warm and as draft-free as possible) and close contact within mills and factories allowed contagious diseases such as typhus and smallpox to spread rapidly, especially because sanitation in mills and the settlements around them was often poor. Around 1780, a water-powered cotton mill was built for Robert Peel on the River Irwell near Radcliffe. The mill employed children bought from workhouses in Birmingham and London. They were unpaid and bound apprentices until they were 21, which in practice made them enslaved labor. They boarded on an upper floor of the building and were locked inside. Shifts were typically 10–10.5 hours in length (i.e. 12 hours after allowing for meal breaks) and the apprentices “hot bunked,” meaning a child who had just finished his shift would sleep in a bed just vacated by a child now starting his shift.

Children at work in a cotton mill (Mule spinning, England 1835). Illustrations from Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1835.

Children as young as 4 were put to work. In coal mines, children began work at the age of 5 and generally died before the age of 25. Many children (and adults) worked 16-hour days.

Early Attempts to Ban Child Labor

The first legislation in response to the abuses experienced by child laborers did not even attempt to ban child labor but merely to improve working conditions for some child workers. The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802, sometimes known as the Factory Act 1802, was designed to improve conditions for apprentices working in cotton mills. The Act was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, who became concerned after a 1784 outbreak of a “malignant fever” at one of his cotton mills, which he later blamed on “gross mismanagement” by his subordinates. The Act required that cotton mills and factories be properly ventilated and basic requirements on cleanliness be met. Apprentices in these premises were to be given a basic education and attend a religious service at least once a month. They were to be provided with clothing and their working hours were limited to no more than twelve hours a day (excluding meal breaks). They were not to work at night.

Despite its modest provisions, the 1802 Act was not effectively enforced and did not address the working conditions of free children, who were not apprentices and who rapidly came to heavily outnumber the apprentices in mills. Regulating the way masters treated their apprentices was a recognized responsibility of Parliament and hence the Act itself was non-contentious, but coming between employer and employee to specify on what terms a person might sell their labor (or that of their children) was highly contentious. Hence it was not until 1819 that an Act to limit the hours of work (and set a minimum age) for free children working in cotton mills was piloted through Parliament by Peel and his son Robert (the future Prime Minister). Strictly speaking, Peel’s Cotton Mills and Factories Act of 1819 paved the way for subsequent Factory Acts and set up effective means of industry regulation. 

These 1802 and 1819 Acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation by child labor opponents, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act, however, only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10-hour working days.

In 1841, about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and children worked underground for 11 or 12 hours a day for smaller wages than men. The public became aware of conditions in the country’s collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms causing the death of 26 children, 11 girls ages 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age. The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who ordered an inquiry. Lord Ashley headed the royal commission of inquiry that investigated the conditions of workers, especially children, in the coal mines in 1840. Commissioners visited collieries and mining communities gathering information, sometimes against the mine owners’ wishes. The report, illustrated by engraved illustrations and the personal accounts of mine workers, was published in 1842. Victorian society was shocked to discover that children as young as five or six worked as trappers, opening and shutting ventilation doors down the mine before becoming hurriers, pushing and pulling coal tubs and corfs.
As a result, the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, commonly known as the Mines Act of 1842, was passed. It prohibited all girls and boys under ten years old from working underground in coal mines. 

The Factories Act 1844 banned women and young adults from working more than 12-hour days and children from the ages 9 to 13 from working 9-hour days. The Factories Act 1847, also known as the Ten Hours Act, made it illegal for women and young people (13-18) to work more than 10 hours and maximum 63 hours a week in textile mills. The last two major factory acts of the Industrial Revolution were introduced in 1850 and 1856. Factories could no longer dictate work hours for women and children, who were to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the summer and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the winter. These acts deprived the manufacturers of a significant amount of power and authority.

25.6.5: Organized Labor

The concentration of workers in factories, mines, and mills facilitated the development of trade unions during the Industrial Revolution. After the initial decades of political hostility towards organized labor, skilled male workers emerged as the early beneficiaries of the labor movement.

Learning Objective

Describe the grievances that gave rise to organized labor

Key Points

• The rapid expansion of industrial society during
  the Industrial Revolution drew women, children, rural workers, and immigrants
  into the industrial work force in large numbers and in new roles. This pool of
  unskilled and semi-skilled labor spontaneously organized in fits and starts
  throughout the early phases of industrialization and would later be an
  important arena for the development of trade unions.
• As collective bargaining and early worker unions
  grew with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the government began to clamp
  down on what it saw as the danger of popular unrest at the time of the
  Napoleonic Wars. In 1799, the Combination Act was passed, which banned trade
  unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Although the unions were
  subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in
  some cities and workplace militancy manifested itself in many different ways.
• By
  the 1810s, the first labor organizations to bring together workers of divergent
  occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of
  Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, founded in 1818 in Manchester. Under
  the pressure of both workers and the middle and upper-class activists
  sympathetic of the workers’ repeal, the law banning unions was repealed in
  1824. However, the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825 severely restricted
  their activity. 
• The first attempts at a national
  general union were made in the 1820s and 1830s. The National Association for
  the Protection of Labor was established in 1830 by John Doherty. The Association quickly enrolled
  approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of textile workers but also
  mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others.
  In 1834, Welsh socialist Robert Owen established
  the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. The organization attracted a
  range of socialists from Owenites to revolutionaries and played a part in the
  protests after the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ case.
• In the later 1830s and 1840s, trade unionism was
  overshadowed by political activity. Of particular importance was Chartism, a
  working-class movement for political reform in Britain that existed from 1838
  to 1858. The strategy employed the large-scale support to put pressure on
  politicians to concede manhood suffrage. Chartism thus relied on constitutional
  methods to secure its aims.
• More
  permanent trade unions followed from the 1850s. They were usually better
  resourced but often less radical. In
  some trades, unions were led and controlled by skilled workers, which
  essentially excluded the interests of the unskilled labor. Women
  were largely excluded from trade union formation, membership, and hierarchies
  until the late 20th century. Unions were eventually legalized in 1871 with the adoption of the Trade Union
  Act 1871.

Key Terms

Tolpuddle Martyrs

A group of 19th century Dorset agricultural laborers who were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Laborers. At the time, friendly societies had strong elements of what are now considered to be the predominant role of trade unions. The group were subsequently sentenced to penal transportation to Australia.

Chartism

A working-class movement for political reform in Britain that existed from 1838 to 1857. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement. The strategy employed was to use the large scale of support for numerous petitions and the accompanying mass meetings to put pressure on politicians to concede manhood suffrage.

Radical War

A week of strikes and unrest, also known as the Scottish Insurrection of 1820, that was a culmination of Radical demands for reform in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which became prominent in the early years of the French Revolution, but were then repressed during the long Napoleonic Wars.

Luddites

A group of English textile
workers and self-employed weavers in the 19th century who used the destruction
of machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of
machinery in a “fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around
standard labor practices. They were fearful that the years they had spent
learning the craft would go to waste and unskilled machine operators would rob
them of their livelihood.

Combination Act

A 1799 Act of Parliament that prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers.

Combinations of Workmen Act 1825

An 1825 Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, which prohibited trade unions from attempting to collectively bargain for better terms and conditions at work and suppressed the right to strike.

Industrialization and Labor Organization

The
rapid expansion of industrial society during the Industrial Revolution drew women, children, rural workers, and immigrants into the industrial work force in large numbers and in new roles. This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labor spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout the early phases of industrialization and would later be an important arena for the development of trade unions. Trade unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the guilds of medieval Europe, although the relationship between the two is disputed as the masters of the guilds employed workers (apprentices and journeymen) who were not allowed to organize.
The concentration of labor in mills, factories, and mines facilitated the organization of workers to help advance the interests of working people. A union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labor and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffering the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining.

Trade unions and collective bargaining were outlawed from no later than the middle of the 14th century when the Ordinance of Laborers was enacted in the Kingdom of England. As collective bargaining and early worker unions grew with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the government began to clamp down on what it saw as the danger of popular unrest at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. In 1799, the Combination Act was passed, which banned trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. Although the unions were subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in some cities. 

Workplace militancy manifested itself in many different ways. For example, Luddites
were a group of English textile workers and self-employed weavers who in the 19th century destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery to get around standard labor practices, fearing that the years they had spent learning the craft would go to waste and unskilled machine operators would rob them of their livelihoods. One of the first mass work strikes emerged in 1820 in Scotland, an event known today as the Radical War. 60,000 workers went on a general strike. Their demands went far beyond labor regulations and included a general call for reforms. The strike was quickly crushed. 

Early Trade Unions

By the 1810s, the first labor organizations to bring together workers of divergent occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, founded in 1818 in Manchester. The latter name was to hide the organization’s real purpose in a time when trade unions were still illegal.

Under the pressure of both workers and the middle and upper class activists sympathetic of the workers’ repeal, the law banning unions was repealed in 1824. However, the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825 severely restricted their activity. It prohibited trade unions from attempting to collectively bargain for better terms and conditions at work and suppressed the right to strike. That did not stop the fledgling labor movements and unions began forming rapidly.  

The first attempts at setting up a national general union were made in the 1820s and 1830s. The National Association for the Protection of Labor was established in 1830 by John Doherty, after an apparently unsuccessful attempt to create a similar national presence with the National Union of Cotton Spinners. The Association quickly enrolled approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of textile workers, but also including mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others. Membership rose to between 10,000 and 20,000 individuals spread across the five counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire within a year. To establish awareness and legitimacy, the union started the weekly Voice of the People publication, with the declared intention “to unite the productive classes of the community in one common bond of union.”

Meeting of the trade unionists in Copenhagen Fields in 1834, for the purpose of carrying a petition to the King for a remission of the sentence passed on the Dorchester (Dorset county) laborers

In England, the members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural laborers became popular heroes and 800,000 signatures were collected for their release. Their supporters organized a political march, one of the first successful marches in the UK, and all were pardoned on condition of good conduct in 1836.

In 1834, Welsh socialist Robert Owen established the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. The organization attracted a range of socialists from Owenites to revolutionaries and played a part in the protests after the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ case.
In 1833, six men from Tolpuddle in Dorset founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Laborers to protest against the gradual lowering of agricultural wages. The Tolpuddle laborers refused to work for less than 10 shillings a week, although by this time wages had been reduced to seven shillings and would be further reduced to six.
In 1834, James Frampton, a local landowner and magistrate, wrote to Home Secretary Lord Melbourne to complain about the union.
As a result of obscure law that prohibited the swearing of secret oaths, six men were arrested, tried, found guilty, and transported to Australia. Owen’s union collapsed shortly afterwards. 

Chartism

In the later 1830s and 1840s, trade unionism was overshadowed by political activity. Of particular importance was Chartism, a working-class movement for political reform in Britain that existed from 1838 to 1858. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, with particular strongholds of support in Northern England, the East Midlands, the Staffordshire Potteries, the Black Country, and the South Wales Valleys. Support for the movement was at its highest in 1839, 1842, and 1848, when petitions signed by millions of working people were presented to Parliament. The strategy used the scale of support demonstrated these petitions and the accompanying mass meetings to put pressure on politicians to concede manhood suffrage. Chartism thus relied on constitutional methods to secure its aims, although there were some who became involved in radical activities, notably in south Wales and Yorkshire. The government did not yield to any of the demands and suffrage had to wait another two decades. Chartism was popular among some trade unions, especially London’s tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and masons. One reason was the fear of the influx of unskilled labor, especially in tailoring and shoe making. In Manchester and Glasgow, engineers were deeply involved in Chartist activities. Many trade unions were active in the general strike of 1842, which spread to 15 counties in England and Wales and eight in Scotland. Chartism taught techniques and political skills that inspired trade union leadership.

Photograph of the Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, London in 1848, by William Edward Kilburn.

Chartists saw themselves fighting against political corruption and for democracy in an industrial society, but attracted support beyond the radical political groups for economic reasons, such as opposing wage cuts and unemployment.

Full Legalization 

After the Chartist movement of 1848 fragmented, efforts were made to form a labor coalition. The Miners’ and Seamen’s United Association in the North-East operated 1851–1854 before it too collapsed because of outside hostility and internal disputes over goals. The leaders sought working-class solidarity as a long-term aim. More permanent trade unions followed from the 1850s. They were usually better resourced but often less radical. The London Trades Council was founded in 1860 and the Sheffield Outrages spurred the establishment of the Trades Union Congress in 1868. By this time, the existence and the demands of the trade unions were becoming accepted by liberal middle-class opinion. Further, in some trades, unions were led and controlled by skilled workers, which essentially excluded the interests of the unskilled labor. For example, in textiles and engineering, union activity from the 1850s to as late as the mid-20th century was largely in the hands of the skilled workers. They supported differentials in pay and status as opposed to the unskilled. They focused on control over machine production and were aided by competition among firms in the local labor market.

The legal status of trade unions in the United Kingdom was eventually established by a Royal Commission on Trade Unions in 1867, which agreed that the establishment of the organizations was to the advantage of both employers and employees. Unions were legalized with the adoption of the Trade Union Act 1871.

Exclusion of Women

Women were largely excluded from trade union formation, membership, and hierarchies until the late 20th century. When women did succeed in challenging male hegemony and made inroads into the representation of labor and combination, it was originally not working-class women but middle-class reformers such as the Women’s Protective and Provident League (WPPL), which sought to amiably discuss conditions with employers in the 1870s. It became the Women’s Trade Union League, members of which were largely upper-middle-class men and women interested in social reform, who wanted to educate women in trade unionism and fund the establishment of trade unions.  Militant socialists broke away from the WPPL and formed the Women’s Trade Union Association, but they had little impact. However, there were a few cases in the 19th century where women trade union members took initiative. For example, women played a central role in the 1875 West Yorkshire weavers’ strike.