Chapter 13

Charlemagne and His Empire

During his long reign the Moors in Spain were driven back beyond the Ebro; the Saxon tribes across the Rhine were forced to submit and to accept Christianity; the Lombard oppressors of Italy were vanquished; and on the Pope’s initiative, Charlemagne himself was acclaimed and crowned at Rome as emperor and successor of the Cæsars. All of the West that remained to Byzantium was Southern Italy. The revived empire came into being on Christmas Day,A.D.800.

The great dominion and the organisation constructed by Charlemagne fell into divisions after his death. The lands east of the Rhine remained German; on the west, the Teutonic forces yielded to the Latinised Celtic spirit. Slowly France and Germany emerged. In England the supremacy among the rival peoples passed from the Angles of Northumbria or of the Midlands to the Saxon house of Wessex. Hungary was held by the Mongolian Avars, presently to be displaced by their Magyar kinsmen; otherwise Eastern Europe, Illyria, as well as the Trans-Danube districts, was being gradually possessed by the Slavonic races. Their westward movement was decisively stayed in the tenth century by Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great, who, for the second time, revived the “Holy Roman Empire” in the West in a form which effectively translated it into the “German Empire.” Meanwhile, the Vikings from the north first ravaged the western coasts, then wrung great provinces from the kings of England, and of “Francia,” preparing for the day when the Norman spirit should set the tone of Western Europe.

Birth of Feudalism in Europe

In the Eastern Mohammedan world the Saracen dominion was passing to Tartar races—to the Seljuk Turks or the Ghaznavid Turks, and later to the Ottomans; the genuine Saracens had seen their greatest days in the times of Harun-al-Raschid, when the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne was being dismembered. Europe in the eleventh century had passed, or was passing, into what is distinctively known as the Feudal Period, or later Middle Ages. Everywhere it became the object of the great rulers to establish a strong central government, and of the Papacy to establish a supremacy over all governments. Feudalism and the Papacy were the rivals of the centralising tendency.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 500 to 1000

Teutonic Races Dominate the West. Rise of Mohammed: extension of Mohammedan Rule from Cordova to Kabul. Western Empire Revived by Charlemagne and again by Otto

A.D.500

The East and Africa

Europe

A.D.500

Overthrow of the African Vandal kingdom by Belisarius, general of Justinian.

Franks predominant on Rhine and in Gaul.Justinian emperor at Constantinople.Roman Law codified in the Institutes.Overthrow of Gothic kingdom in Italy by Belisarius.Advance of Saxons (South) and Angles (East) in England.

550

Buddhism introduced in Japan.Advance of Persia against the Eastern Empire.

Advance of Persia against the Eastern Empire.

Lombard conquest of North Italy.Spread of Celtic Christianity in Britain by St. Columba.Pontificate of Gregory the Great.Latin Christianity introduced into Kent by St. Augustine, 597.

600

Overthrow of Persia by Emperor Heraclius.MOHAMMED. The Hegira (622).Conquest of Egypt and Syria by the Caliphs Abu-bekr and Omar.Conquest of Persia, and extension of Caliphate over West Asia.

ENGLAND: Supremacy of Northumbria.ITALY: North under Lombard dominion; South attached to the Eastern Empire.Avar dominion in Hungary.Slavonic settlement in Servia.

650

Saracens (Caliphate) attack the Empire in the East and in Africa.Rise of the Shiite sect of Mohammedans.

ENGLAND: Final overthrow of Paganism.Triumph of Roman over Celtic Christianity.FRANKS: Dukes of Austrasia (East Franks) dominate the Merovingian kings.

700

Revival in India of Brahmanism, gradually developing into modern Hinduism.

Saracens (or Moors) overrun Spain.Saracen advance checked by Emperor Leo the Isaurian at Constantinople, and by Charles Martel at Tours.Beginning of the Iconoclastic controversy. Discussions between Papacy and Eastern Church.

750

Division of the Caliphate into Eastern (Abassid) at Bagdad and Western (Ommeiad) at Cordova.Rise of the Turks in the Caliphate armies.Harun-al-Raschid Caliph at Bagdad.

ENGLAND: Supremacy of Mercia.FRANKS: Fall of the Merovingian dynasty.Pepin the Short founds the Karling or Carolingian Dynasty.Empress Irene at Constantinople.FRANKS: Karl the Great (Charlemagne) succeeds Pepin as king of the Franks. He drives the Moors beyond the Ebro, conquers the Lombards, and is crowned as Roman Emperor by the Pope. (800).

800

Increasing power of the Western Caliphate.

Subjugation of the Saxons by Charlemagne.Division of Charlemagne’s dominion among his grandsons.ENGLAND: Supremacy of Wessex under Egbert.The Danes, or Northmen, harry the coasts of Europe.

850

Fatemide Mohammedan dynasty established in Egypt.Decline of the Abassid Caliphs.

Carolingian dominion divided into West (Francia), East (Franconia, Germany), Central (Burgundy) and Italy.Pressure of Slavonic peoples on East Germany.ENGLAND: Alfred the Great. Settlement of the Danes in the Danelagh. Organisation of Government, Law, etc.Advance of Magyars in Hungary.Iceland colonised, 874–950.

900

FRANCE: Duchy of Normandy ceded to Rollo.NORWAYunited under Harold Haarfager.ENGLAND: House of Wessex kings of all England.GERMANY: Henry the Fowler, Saxon King of Germany, and his son Otto the Great, check the Magyar advance.Pressure of Slavs on Eastern Empire.

950

1000A.D.

Recovery of Eastern Provinces from the Saracens by the Byzantine Empire.

EMPIRE: Otto becomes King of Italy and Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire is from this time definitely German.FRANCE: The Capet dynasty replaces the Carolingian.Slavs driven back by Eastern Emperors. Russians Christianised. Slav dominion established in Poland.

1000A.D.

England and France

In England, where a Norman dynasty and Norman aristocracy established themselves, the unifying process was astonishingly rapid. The country was comparatively shielded from Papal interposition by distance. A series of vigorous and able monarchs prevented pure feudalism from ever getting developed; it resulted that in the thirteenth century baronage and people made common cause in imposing not feudalism, but constitutional control over the kings. In France, the victory of the crown over feudalism was far slower; the feudatories were too powerful, and among them were the kings of England, as dukes or counts of great territories within France. The Hundred Years’ War was, in fact, not so much a contest for the French crown as a struggle between the French kings and their mightiest vassals. It was not till the English had been finally expelled that Louis XI. was enabled to make the crown supreme in France. There, as in England, the monarchy never submitted to the Papacy; it was so far victorious in that struggle that in the fourteenth century the seat of the Roman pontificate was transferred to Avignon, and the Pontiff himself became literally the creature of France.

Christendom and the Crusades

Spain and Byzantium alike remained for the most part outside the general European current. They were the buffers between Christendom and Islam. In the Spanish Peninsula the Moors were held more or less at bay, but the land was not freed from their dominion till the close of the fifteenth century. Byzantium held the Turks at bay till the middle of the same century; then she fell for ever. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Christendom carried on against Islam the long contest of the Crusades; but the warriors who took part in those wars neither fought nor organised as though themselves forming an organic body; the Christian hosts in Palestine were mere miscellaneous gatherings, united only in the temporary fits of enthusiasm. The Holy Sepulchre was gained, but within a century it was lost again; the crusading cause was one to which not states, but individuals only, devoted themselves. Conquest would have been possible only if the Crusaders had gone forth prepared to make their own homes in Asia. The East could not be held by garrisons with no abiding interest there.

Islam, then, held, and more than held, its own against the West; while during these same centuries it swept east and south through the passes of the Punjab into India, establishing Turk and Afghan kingdoms over most of the great peninsula; though the vast bulk of the population there held to the Hinduism which, born of the earlier Brahmanism, had almost expelled the Buddhist religion, which, however, had established itself permanently in Further India and China.

Empire, Feudalism, & Papacy

The might of Islam could have been overthrown only by a united Christendom, and for that the disintegrating forces were too great. England and, more slowly, France freed themselves from feudalism. But Christendom required one head. If the Papacy had stood by the empire, feudalism might have been broken down, and the emperor have become that head. But the Papacy aimed at supremacy for itself—the spiritual power was at war with the temporal. Anti-imperial factions claimed the support of the Church; the efforts at consolidation of the great Hohenstaufen Emperors, Barbarossa and Frederick II., were unsuccessful. The empire itself became only a congeries of kingdoms and dukedoms, counties, bishoprics, free cities, and leagues of cities, under the Austrian house of Hapsburg; while Rome, mighty from the days of Gregory VII. to Innocent III., lost its prestige in the captivity at Avignon and by the Great Schism which followed. In England Wycliffe’s voice was raised; on the south-east of the empire the Hussite wars raged, premonitory of the Reformation.

End of the Middle Ages

In 1453 Constantinople fell, and the Turk was permanently established in the east of Europe. As a counterstroke, in the west, not forty years later, the Moorish dominion in Spain was wiped out, Spain emerging as a united Christian kingdom. Before the end of the century Columbus and Gama had discovered America, and virtually rediscovered India. Across the ocean a new, almost unlimited field for expansion, for enterprise, for rivalry had been opened to the European peoples. Already in the realms of intellect old forgotten knowledge had been gradually recovered by the Renascence, the revival of learning and letters; with the intellectual expansion and the invention of the printing press paths to new knowledge were being opened. Men were shaking themselves free from the shackles of authority and tradition. Hence, the sixteenth century witnessed that revolt of half Western Christendom from Rome which we call the Reformation; in its essence, though by no means in its form at the first, a revolt against the interposition of any human authority between the individual man and his Maker. With that revolt political and national divisions were inextricably blended, while the whole was complicated by the new conditions of political supremacy created by the New World.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 1000 to 1500

Development of Feudalism. The Rise and Decadence of the Papacy. The Crusades. Holy Roman Empire. The Organisation of England, France, and Spain. The Renaissance

A.D.1000

The Non-Christian World

Christendom

A.D.1000

Mahmud of Ghazni. Beginning of Mohammedan invasions of India.

Scandinavian power: Canute, King of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and England.Franconian line of emperors; Burgundy reunited to Empire.Dynasty of Hugh Capet in France.

1050

Power of the Seljuk Turkish Dynasty.

ENGLAND: The Norman conquest, 1066.Norman conquests in Sicily and S. Italy.Power of the Empire under Henry III.Pontificate of Gregory VII. (Hildebrand).Beginning of the struggle between Papacy and Empire (Henry IV.)First Crusade.

1100

Development of Papal power.ENGLAND: Organisation of central government under Henry I. checked under Stephen.Norman kingdom of Sicily.Conrad, first Hohenstaufen emperor. Beginning of Guelphs (Papal) and Ghibellines (Imperial).

1150

Establishment of Mohammedan (Ghori) dynasty at Delhi.Conquests of the Saracens under the Seljuk Saladin.Third Crusade (Cœur-de-Lion).

The Angevin dominion of Henry II., comprising half France.ENGLAND: End of feudal anarchy. Maximum power of Crown. Henry worsted in the struggle with the Church.Chivalry typified in Richard Cœur-de-Lion.Frederick Barbarossa emperor, 1155–1190.City development. Lombard League; and German Free Cities.Advance of Moors in Spain.

1200

Genghis Khan: Tartar conquests in Asia and irruption into Europe.Buddhism obsolescent in India.

Highest power of Papacy, under Innocent III.Francis of Assisi: institution of Mendicant Friars.ENGLAND: Magna Charta; contest of Crown and Barons. Loss of Angevin dominion.FRANCE: Development of central power under Louis VIII. and IX.Institution of the Teutonic knights.Break up of the Eastern Empire. Venice.

1250

Rise of the Ottoman (Othman) Turks.Khublai Khan in Eastern Asia.

Decadence of Imperial power. First Habsburg emperor.End of the Crusading period.ITALY: Rise of Florence. Dante. Giotto.ENGLAND: Establishment of Parliament (Montfort and Edward I.). Organisation of the English nation.

1300

Mameluke Sultans in Egypt.

The Papacy “in captivity” at Avignon.Independence of Scotland.Independence of Switzerland.Ottoman Turks establish a footing in Europe.ENGLAND ANDFRANCE: Beginning of the 100 Years’ War.

1350

Rise of the Ming dynasty in China: expulsion of Mongols.Conquests of Timur the Tartar (Tamerlane)

Conquests of Timur the Tartar (Tamerlane)

The Jacquerie in France.The Great Schism: period of dual Papacy.ENGLAND: Peasant revolt. Failure of Richard II.’s attempt at absolutism. Wycliffe.Union of Lithuania with Poland.

1400

Empires of Mexico and Peru.

End of Great Schism. Hussite wars.English conquest of France, and subsequent expulsion. Increasing powers of Parliament.Invention of printing press.

1450

1500A.D.

Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus; and of Cape route to India by Vasco da Gama.

Turks capture Constantinople.ENGLAND: Wars of the Roses, 1455–1485.Maritime greatness of PORTUGAL.SPAINconsolidated under Ferdinand and Isabella.FRANCEconsolidated under Louis XI.ENGLANDconsolidated under Henry VII. Establishment of absolutism under constitutional forms.Revival of learning. Humanists. Savonarola.

1500A.D.

Growth of Modern Nations

The next two centuries, then, saw France, already a consolidated state, develop into the first military Power under the most absolute monarch in Europe—through a stage of prolonged religious strife which ended by establishing the tolerationist Bourbon, Henry IV., on the throne, through the rule of the two great cardinals, Richelieu and Mazarin, to the intolerant autocracy of Louis XIV., with a close aristocracy no longer in opposition to the crown but allied to it.

In England the development was on different lines. There we find an absolutist movement, the outcome of the Wars of the Roses. But however autocratic the Tudors were, they held by constitutional forms, and preserved the intense loyalty of their people. On Elizabeth’s death, a century-old matrimonial alliance placed the sceptres of England and Scotland in a single hand.

Then, on the theory of Divine right, the Crown attempted to override the constitution; the Civil War gave the power neither to king nor parliament, but to a military dictator. On his death the country reverted to a compromise between Crown and Parliament; the Stuarts, again, with the aid of their cousin, the autocrat of France, attempted to recover absolutism. They were driven from the country, and constitutionalism—in effect, government by an oligarchy of landowners—was decisively established. The religious problem had found a decisively Protestant solution at an early stage; but Anglicanism and Puritanism soon grew mutually intolerant; it was only with the Revolution of 1688 that toleration and constitutionalism definitely triumphed together.

Europe in Development

Meanwhile, in the reign of Elizabeth, England had asserted her intellectual eminence by giving birth to Shakespeare and to Bacon; and had decisively displaced Spain from the rulership of the seas. In the next century her colonisation of North America counterbalanced the Spanish dominion in the south and centre of the Western Hemisphere, though it was not unchallenged by France. In the East a great commercial rivalry had grown up between English, Dutch, and French—a rivalry still to be fought out.

Collision of the Dynasties

In the early years of the sixteenth century matrimonial alliances had joined Spain, the Low Countries, and the empire under a single ruler, a Hapsburg of the (Austrian) Imperial house. The vast dominion was extended by the acquisition of the golden territories of the American continent. The Empire passed to one Hapsburg branch, Spain and her dependencies to another. In the empire, a temporarymodus vivendiwas established between Roman Catholics and Protestants; but Spain, the colossus which threatened to dominate Europe, was split by the revolt of the Netherlands, and her power shaken to its foundations by the collision with England. In the sixteenth century, Germany was devastated by the religious Thirty Years’ War; Austria emerged only as the chief among a number of German states, and Holland won a naval and commercial position second only to that of England. The Ottoman Turks, still aggressive, were still held in check. In India, a Turkish dynasty known as the Moguls (Mughàls, Mongols) extended its sway from Kabul to the mouth of the Ganges, and almost to Cape Comorin.

At the opening of the eighteenth century the aggressive Continental policy of Louis XIV. involved Europe in the “War of the Spanish Succession.” The French king’s armies were shattered by repeated blows at the hands of Marlborough and Eugene, but he finally obtained his primary object, the recognition of his grandson as king of Spain. The threat of a Hapsburg domination passed into the threat of a Bourbon domination. In the east of Europe a final limit was set to the Ottoman aggression. In Britain, the incorporation of Scotland was completed, formally by the Union of 1707, effectively by the suppression of Jacobitism in 1746.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 1500 to 1700

New World Entered, and East Re-entered. The Reformation. Organisation of European Nations under Absolute Monarchies. Constitutional Struggle in England. English Naval Supremacy.

A.D.1500

Asia and Africa

Europe and America

A.D.1500

The New World bestowed on Spain and Portugal by the Bull of Pope Alexander VI.Portuguese dominion established in the Indian seas by Albuquerque.Conquest of Egypt by Ottoman Turks.Safid dynasty in Persia (“The Sofy”).

Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian.Rivalry of Henry VIII. (1509–47), Francis I. (1515–47), and Charles V. (1519–56), who combines Spain, Burgundy, and the Empire.Luther challenges the Papacy, 1517–20.The Reformation era opens.

1520

First circumnavigation completed, 1522.Invasion of Hindostan (Northern India) by Baber, the first “Mogul” emperor, 1526.Expulsion of Moguls: dynasty of Sher Shah at Delhi, 1540.

Expulsion of Moguls: dynasty of Sher Shah at Delhi, 1540.

Turkish advance under Solyman the Magnificent.Gustavus Vasa in Sweden, 1523–60.Spain conquers Mexico (1520) and Peru (1533).REFORMATION: Subjection of Church to Crown (England). Confession of Augsburg: Protestant League. Calvin creates Presbyterianism.

1540

François Xavier in Japan.Restoration of Moguls, 1556.

Restoration of Moguls, 1556.

RUSSIA: Ivan the Terrible.Order of Jesuits formally established.GERMANY: Contest between Charles V. and Protestant princes of Germany ended by compromise at Peace of Augsburg.ENGLAND: Protestant Revolution (Edward VI.) followed by Romanist reaction (Mary), and final establishment of Protestantism (Elizabeth) in England and Scotland.

1560

Rule of Akbar, 1556–1605.Toleration of Hinduism.

SPAIN: Philip II. and the Inquisition.Council of Trent defines limits of Roman Catholicism.FRANCE: Series of civil wars of religion, 1562–95.Revolt of Netherlands from Spain.Turkish advance checked at Lepanto, 1571.PORTUGALabsorbed by Spain.

1580

Mogul dominion established and organised throughout Northern India.

Gradual success of the Netherlands revolt.English naval supremacy proved by the Armada 1588.Decadence of Spain.FRANCE: Toleration secured by Henri IV.Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare.

1600

Development of Japanese Feudalism.Reign of Jehan Gir in Hindostan, 1605–27.First English factory at Surat, 1611.First English Embassy to Delhi, 1615.

Galileo and Bacon.Union of English and Scottish Crowns, 1603.Dutch and English commerce in the East Indies.Virginia, first successful British colony in North America, 1606.HOLLAND: Independence established, 1609.GERMANY: Thirty Years’ War begins, 1618–48.

1620

Reign of Shah Jehan, 1627–58.The Taj Mahal built.End of the Portuguese power in the East.Extension of the Mogul dominion into the Deccan.

Gustavus Adolphus.FRANCE: Richelieu organises absolutism.ENGLAND: Constitutional struggle between Charles I. and Parliament. The Petition of Right, 1628.PORTUGALrecovers independence.

1640

Rise of the Manchu (Tartar) dynasty in China.Reign of Aurangzib, 1658–1707.Rise of the Mahrattas under Sivaji.

Reign of Aurangzib, 1658–1707.Rise of the Mahrattas under Sivaji.

FRANCE: Rule of Mazarin: absolutism established.ENGLAND: Civil War, resulting in military protectorate.Thirty Years’ War ended by Peace of Westphalia.Commercial and naval rivalry of English and Dutch.Development of France into the leading military power.

1660

France enters the field in India.Revival of intolerant Mohammedanism by Aurangzib.Expansion of the Mogul Empire over Southern India.

FRANCE: Louis XIV. initiates policy of aggression.ENGLAND: Charles II. undermines supremacy of Parliament. Repression of Nonconformity by Parliament.Louis XIV. attacks Holland, with occasional support from Charles II.ENGLAND: Attack on Romanism.

1680

1700A.D.

Aggressive movement of Turkey.FRANCE: Louis XIV. revokes Edict of Nantes, 1685.Constitutionalism established in England by the revolution of 1688.Wars of England and Holland against France.RUSSIA: Peter the Great.Newton and Leibnitz.

1700A.D.

Settling Down of the Powers

From 1739 to 1763 Europe was again plunged into wars, with an eight years’ interval. The motives of those wars, and of the combinations of states on either side, were complicated; the results were simple. Prussia, under Frederick the Great, emerged as a first-class Power; France lost her North American Colonies to Great Britain; the British East India Company defeated the attempt of the French to establish a paramount influence with the native princes, the Mogul Empire having broken up into a congeries of practically independent satrapies; and the British themselves became established as a territorial Power by the conquest of Bengal. Russia also, organised at the beginning of the century by Peter the Great, had taken her place definitely among the great Powers.

During the next twenty years (1763–1783) Poland was absorbed by her neighbours. The British Empire was sundered by the revolt of the older American Colonies, which were established as the United States of America; while Canada remained loyal. By this time the whole of Europe was practically governed by absolute monarchies; but a cataclysm was at hand. France became the scene of a tremendous revolution. Crown and aristocracy were toppled into the abyss.

Napoleon and the Revolution

France proclaimed herself the liberator of the peoples; the monarchs of Europe combined to suppress the proletariat. During the last decade of the century one revolutionary constitution after another was set up in Paris, while the revolutionary armies shattered monarchical armies, and turned the “liberated” peoples into subject dependencies of the Republic. On the seas, however, Britain successfully asserted her supremacy. Of the commanders of the Republic, the most brilliant was the Corsican Bonaparte. He dreamed of making Egypt the basis for achieving an Asiatic empire, and thence overwhelming Europe; but the dream was shattered when he found himself isolated by Nelson’s destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir in the Battle of the Nile. Returning to Paris, he transformed the republic into an empire; he set up his brothers or his generals as rulers over half the kingdoms in Europe; he dictated terms to every government except Britain. Britain annihilated his fleets, and fought and beat his generals in the Spanish Peninsula. He conquered the kings, but the nations rose against him, and overthrew him; his last effort was crushed at Waterloo.

Absolutism was reinstated, but the proletariats had learnt to demand freedom. Steam-power and steam-traction so changed the conditions of production as to revolutionise the relations between labour and capital, and between the landed and the manufacturing interests. In Great Britain political power passed from the landowners to the manufacturers with the great Reform Bill of 1832, and from the wealthy to the labouring classes with the Franchise Bills of 1867 and 1884. Every monarchy has been compelled to submit to limitations of its own powers more or less copied from Britain.

The World as it is

Britain herself, not untaught by the breach with America, has learned to establish responsible government in her Colonies, making them virtually free states; and among those states the idea of federation has taken root and is bearing fruit. In India, challenged by one native race after another, she has extended her sway over the whole peninsula, and has abolished the anomaly of governing her great dependency through a trading company. In the West her kinsmen have raised the United States into a mighty nation.

In Europe France has passed through monarchy and republic and second empire into a stable republic; Italy has revolted against foreign rulers, and become a united nation; the small peoples of the Balkan Peninsula have now achieved by arms their liberty from Turkish rule. Prussia has won the hegemony of the German states, and established a new German Empire. Russia, the bogey of the West, and of Britain in particular, has shown her weakness in collision with the sudden development of Japan.

Finally, the Dark Continent has been explored and partitioned: in the south, after a sharp conflict, British and Dutch are on the way to become a united people; in the north, Egypt has been reorganised under British administration. We end, as we began, with the land of the Pyramids.

ARTHURD. INNES.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 1700 to 1914

Struggle for Colonial Supremacy. French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Growth of Democracy and Consolidation of European States. Colonial Extension of Responsible Government

A.D.1700

Asia, Africa, and Australasia

Europe and America

A.D.1700

War of Spanish Succession, 1702–13. Bourbons established in Spain.Career of Charles XII. of Sweden, 1697–1718.GREATBRITAIN: Incorporating union of England and Scotland, 1707.Turkish advance decisively stopped by Eugene, 1717.Alliance of France and Great Britain.

1720

Anglo-Spanish War, combined with War of the Austrian Succession, 1739–48.Development of Prussian military power under Frederick William.

1740

Struggle between British and French in Southern India, 1746–61.Clive conquers Bengal; beginning of British territorial power in India, 1757.

Clive conquers Bengal; beginning of British territorial power in India, 1757.

GREATBRITAIN: End of Jacobitism (the Forty-five) consolidates the union.Seven Years’ War (1756–63): Prussia and Great Britain against France, Austria, and Russia.Achievements of Frederick. Overthrow of France at sea, and in Canada and India.

1760

British dominion receives Mogul’s sanction.Haidar Ali in Mysore.Governor-Generalship of Warren Hastings (1774–85), establishes the British power.

Haidar Ali in Mysore.Governor-Generalship of Warren Hastings (1774–85), establishes the British power.

Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg exclude France from America and India, and confirm the position of Prussia.Partition of Poland.GREATBRITAIN: Quarrel with Colonies; leading to War of American Independence, 1775–83.

1780

Dual control in India by East India Company and Parliamentary Board of Control set up by Pitt’s India Act.Administration of British India systematised.Overthrow of Mysore, and institution of subsidiary alliances by Lord Wellesley.

British recovery of naval predominance.UNITEDSTATES: Independence established 1783.FRANCE: French Revolution, 1789.War between European Coalitions and French Republic, 1792–1802. Rise of Bonaparte. Triumphs of French Army and British Navy.GREATBRITAIN: Legislative Union with Ireland.Kant and Goethe.

1800

Overthrow of Mahratta power by Lord Hastings (1819): extensive annexations.Acquisition of Cape Colony from Holland by Great Britain.Gradual planting of Australasian Colonies.

War renewed (1803) between European Coalitions and Emperor Napoleon (1804).Trafalgar and Austerlitz, 1805. Peninsula War, 1808–13. Moscow Campaign, 1812. Waterloo Campaign, 1815.European reconstruction. Absolutist reaction: the Holy alliance.

1820

Aggressive Eastward movement of Persia checked at Herat.First Afghan Wars, 1839–42.CHINA: First collision with Europe.

Independence of South and Central American States.Greek War of Independence, 1822–29.FRANCE: Constitutional Monarchy under Louis Philippe, 1830–48.GREATBRITAIN: Parliamentary Reform and manufacturing development. Railways.

1840

Sikh Wars, 1845–49.Annexations under Dalhousie.Indian Mutiny, 1857. Transfer of Indian Government to British Crown, 1858.JAPAN: Admission of foreign traders.

Charles Darwin.Revolutionary movements in Europe.FRANCE: Republic (1849) passing to Empire of Napoleon III. (1852).Crimean War, 1854–56.Establishment of responsible government in British Colonies.

1860

JAPAN: Revived power of the Mikado.Advance of Russia in Central Asia towards India.Second Afghan War, 1878–80.

Second Afghan War, 1878–80.

American Civil War, 1861–65. Abolition of Slavery.Independence of United Italy under Victor Emmanuel.Prussia acquires leadership of German States 1866.Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71. New German Empire, and new French Republic.Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78.

1880

Mahdism in the Eastern Sudan; ended at Omdurman in 1898. British control established.Partition of Africa into “Spheres of Influence.”War between China and Japan.Annexation of Philippines by United States.South African War (1899–1902) and incorporation of Dutch States into British Empire.Federation of Australian Colonies, 1901.War between Russia and Japan, 1904–5.

British control established in Egypt.Repeated disturbances in the Balkan States established by the Russo-Turkish War.First Peace Conference of European powers at the Hague, 1899.Norway separates from Sweden and elects King Haakon, 1905.Second Peace Conference at the Hague, 1907.

First Peace Conference of European powers at the Hague, 1899.

Norway separates from Sweden and elects King Haakon, 1905.

1910

A.D.

CHINA: Revolution: Manchu dynasty displaced by Republic, 1912.Tripoli annexed by Italy from Ottoman Empire, 1912.

Allied Balkan States defeat Turkey, 1912.Creation of Albania as independent state, 1914.Revolution in Mexico, 1913–14.

A.D.

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