Dilemmas of empire 1850-1918. power, territory, identity

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 163-200

  Lieven, Dominic ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 21644434970     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200949903400201     Document Type: Article

References (183)

1. On the first type of empire see e.g. M. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca 1986)
2. On the second see M. Duverger, Le Concept d'Empire (Paris 1980)
3. Doyle, Empires, is one example of an IR focus. So also is Paul Kennedy's justly famous The Rise and Fall of the Great Poivers (New York 1987), whose premises are very much those of R. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge 1981). S. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (New York 1993) is the best-known example of an almost purely domestic focus
4. On the forging of a Chinese identity out of empire see e.g. C. Blunden and M. Elvin, Cultural Atlas of China (Oxford 1983), 90-106
5. L.J. Moser, The Chinese Mosaic. The Peoples and Provinces of China (Boulder, CO 1985)
6. J. Unger (ed.), Chinese Nationalism (Armonk 1996)
7. On potential sources of disunity see D.S.G. Goodman and G. Segal (eds), China Deconstruct. Politics, Trade and Regionalism (London 1994)
8. G.V. Scammell, The First Imperial Age. European Overseas Expansion c. 1400-1715 (London 1989) is the best up-to-date introduction to early European imperialism. See in particular chap. 1 for comparisons between the Americas and the Ottoman and Chinese empires
9. E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire (London 1987), 59
10. D.R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire. Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1981), chap. 3
11. Chap. 2 of I.R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War 1899-1902 (London 1996) is a very useful insight into the link between advancing mining technology, African geopolitics, British imperialism and the origins of the Boer War
12. Whether the belief was fully justified, even in the case of the world's greatest empire may be another matter. See L.E. Davis and R.A. Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire (Cambridge 1988). An introduction to economic aspects of British imperial history is D. Fieldhouse, 'For Richer, for Poorer?', which is chap. 5 in P.J. Marshall (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (Cambridge 1996)
13. A recent contribution to the debate on the economic relationship between metropolis and colony is P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 2 vols: vol. 1, Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914: vol. 2, Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914-1990 (London 1993)
14. Hobsbawm, Age of Empire, op. cit., 59
15. V.P. Ryabushinsky (ed.), Velikaya Rossiya (Moscow 1911), 2 vols: here vol. 1, 17
16. R. Szporluk, Communism and Nationalism. Karl Marx versus Friedrick List (Oxford 1988)
17. Witte's famous memorandum on this issue was first published in English in the Journal of Modern History, vol. 26 (1954), 64-73: 'A Secret Memorandum of Sergei Witte on the Industrialisation of Imperial Russia'. Theodore von Laue, the memorandum's translator, wrote Sergei Witte and the Industrialisation of Russia (New York 1963), which portrays Witte almost as a precursor of Stalinist-era industrialisation
18. Olga Crisp, Studies in the Russian Economy before 1914 (London 1976) and J.R. McKay, Pioneers for Profit (Chicago 1970) add a necessary corrective. On Russian economic prospects and strategies in neighbouring Asian territories
19. R. Quested, 'Matey' Imperialists. The Tsarist Russians in Manchuria 1895-1917 (Hong Kong 1982), especially 205-36
20. D.W. Spring, 'Russian Imperialism in Asia in 1914', Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique, xx, 3-4 (1979), 305-22
21. A.F. Astaf'yev, Russko-Germanskie diplomaticheskie otnosheniya 1905-11 (Moscow 1972), 221-46, 265-82
22. There is by now a considerable literature on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century relative decline of the Ottoman Empire. For an introduction to the issues see chaps VII, IX and X in R. Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman (Paris 1989)
23. The recent work by EM. Gocek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire (Oxford 1996) confirms the traditional view that the Janissaries were the main obstacle to the Sultan's attempt to 'found western-style military training' (p. 69) and stresses the vital role of military and administrative professional cadres educated in western-style schools in the transformation of the nineteenthcentury Ottoman state. In Absolutism and Ruling Class (Oxford 1991) John LeDonne shows the essential role played by the army in provincial administration and tax-collection before the reign of Catherine II
24. W.M. McNeill, Europe's Steppe Frontier (Chicago 1964). Patricia Herlihy, Odessa. A History 1794-1914 (Cambridge 1986) is a useful reminder that Odessa should be considered alongside Sydney or Chicago as a product of Europe's expansion and the integration of newly colonised vast grainlands into the world economy. Mark Twain remarked that Odessa 'looked just like an American city', ibid., 13
25. Statistics from M.E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923 (London 1987), 16
26. These are themes repeated in many of the chapters of the major English-language work on the Ottoman minorities: B. Braude and B. Lewis (eds), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. The Functioning of a Plural Society, 2 vols (New York 1982). J. Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians 1878-1896 (London 1993) illustrates these trends with respect to Ottoman-Armenian relations
27. On the Ottoman economy in the nineteenth century see R. Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy 1800-1914 (London 1993). He notes e.g. that by 1912/13 the Public Debt Administration employed rather more officials than the Ottoman Ministry of Finance (p. 194). The Ottoman government had no vote in the Administration's Council
28. The question of the genocide's existence and of responsibility for it remains hugely sensitive and contentious. V.N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide (Oxford 1995) appears to me to deploy convincing evidence from well-informed German, Austrian and (some) Turkish sources that premeditated extermination was intended. Whether Dadrian is correct as to numbers is another matter, and one on which I am quite unable to judge
29. See M. Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire (London 1996) for the various schemes for concessions and spheres of interest before 1914
30. H.M. Scott, 'Russia as a European Great Power' in J. Hartley and R. Bartlett (eds), Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment (New York 1990), 7-39
31. See also chaps 3 & 4 of W. Fuller, Strategy and Power in Russia 1600-1914 (New York 1992)
32. K. Fulford (ed.), Beloved Mama. Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess 1878-1885 (London 1981), 80-1, 144-5
33. J.D. Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish Question 1855-1881 (Cambridge 1995) discusses the many factors that contributed to the origins of modern Russian antisemitism in this crucial period
34. see also H.D. Löwe, Antisemitismus und reaktionäre Utopie (Hamburg 1978), and H. Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Oxford 1986). During the first world war the Russian army expelled some 600,000 Jews from the (very extensive) zone of military operations and did so with a brutality that shocked even some hardened antisemites in the government. Admittedly, these barbarities fell well short of the Armenian genocide
35. The de-militarisation of the Black Sea was not merely deeply humiliating to a great power (i.e. Russia) which bordered it but was also extremely dangerous. In time of war Russia would have no Black Sea fleet but the Ottomans could not just themselves retain a fleet at the Straits, they could also allow allied fleets to pass through them: see W.E. Mosse, The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System 1855-71 (London 1963)
36. E.g. Count Alexander Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador in London: A.P. Izvolsky, Au Service de la Russie, Alexandre Iswolksy, Correspondence Diplomatique, 2 vols (Paris 1937 and 1939); here vol. 1, 335-8
37. Prince G.N. Truberskoy, who was subsequently Director of the Asiatic Department, wrote during the Bosnian crisis of his fears that Russia was following the path of previous defunct empires and that Germany had hopes of annexing the Baltic provinces: Moskovsksy Ezhenedel'nik, 28 February 1909, no. 9, p. 6. On 3 January 1909, no. 1, p. 13, he expressed the fear that Russia might become so weak that, like other defunct empires, it risked becoming 'a subject for compensations and possible division'
38. B. Pearce, How Haig saved Lenin (London 1987) makes this point. In my view, however, his hero has the wrong name. Though the British and French armies did most of the actual fighting on the Western Front in 1918, the defeat of Germany would have been inconceivable without the financial, moral but also military support of a belligerent USA
39. D. McKay and H.M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648-1815 (London 1983)
40. El Luard, The Balance of Power. The System of International Relations, 1648-1815 (London 1992)
41. H.M. Scott, 'Russia as a European Great Power' in Hartley and Bartlett (eds), Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment, op. cit., 7-39
42. Ryabushinsky, Velikaya Rossiya, op. cit., vol. 1, 96
43. Mezhdunarodnie otnosheniya v epokhu imperializma (Mo), vol. 18i, no. 147
44. Much of this is a précis of my analysis of the views of Prince G.N. Trubetskoy in chap. 4, section 2 of my Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London 1983). On the Dual Alliance see e.g. the comment by Roy Bridge which makes clear the link between the German alliance and the domestic power structure of the monarchy: 'For Czernin and the ruling elite the preservation of the 1867 system at home was a noli me tangere; and if this involved a simple gamble on a German victory abroad, so be it. In an utterly uncompromising speech on 2 April [1918] Czernin announced the Monarchy's full support for all Germany's war aims': chap. 1, 'The Foreign Policy of the Monarchy 1908-1918', 27 in M. Cornwall (ed.), The Last Years of Austria-Hungary (Exeter 1990). For Russian fears of Japan and China see the opinions of, among others, the War and Foreign Ministers cited by me on p. 10 of Russia and the Origins, op. cit. On German-Ottoman relations
45. U. Trumpener, 'Germany and the End of the Ottoman Empire', in Kent (ed.), Great Powers, op. cit
46. The literature on Britain's role as a great power in the pre-war era is immense. A.L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan, Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline 1895-1905 (Princeton 1988) is a thoughtful introduction to British dilemmas in this era
47. Z.S. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (London 1977) remains the best all-round survey of British options and policies in the years immediately before the war
48. K. Neilson, '"Greatly Exaggerated": The Myth of the Decline of Great Britain before 1914', International History Review, 13 (1991), 695-725 is a comment on a theme ('declinok)gy') which was to become a near obsession in the UK
49. On the Russian defence industry see P. Gatrell, Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900-1914 (Cambridge 1994)
50. K.F. Shatsillo, Russkiy imperializm i razvitie flota (Moscow 1968) still repays reading
51. On the army see e.g. "Bobrov", 'Vosstanovlenie sily', vol. 2, 67-89 in Ryabushinsky, Velikya Rossiya, op. cit.: see especially 75-6. On the fleet
52. A.A. Lieven, Dukh i ditsiplina nashega flota (St Petersburg 1914), 87-9: 'We are completely helpless without real warrant officers.'
53. Caution is required in stressing this: British officials, for instance, regretted that the City was largely immune to appeals to use its financial power to serve British official policies and believed that this was much less true in other countries. See e.g. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, vol. 1, 432-44 as regards China
54. See the useful discussion of this issue as regards South America, Britain's largest 'informal empire' before 1914 in R. Miller, Britain and Latin America in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London 1993)
55. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, op. cit., put heavy stress on dependence on the City for capital as a vital link in the imperial chain. On the creation and foundations of the Anglo-Scottish union
56. L. Colley, Britons. Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (New Haven, CT 1992)
57. See D. Geyer, Russian Imperialism (Leamington Spa 1987) on the implications of the empire's financial and economic weakness
58. For a general survey of Poland under Russian rule see P.S. Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Roland 1795-1918 (Seattle 1974)
59. See also chap. 2, vol. 2 of N. Davies, God's Playground. A History of Poland. Vol. 11. 1795 to the Present (Oxford 1981)
60. See also A. Szwarc, 'To Be a Pole in the Nineteenth Century: Attitudes and Models', 227ff in M. Branch and J. Hartley (eds), Finland and Poland in the Russian Empire (London 1995)
61. See e.g. L. Trainor, British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism (Cambridge 1994), 118-39
62. Tyrrell's comment is quoted by K. Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar. British Policy and Russia. 1894-1917 (Oxford 1996), 33. On the general issues raised in this paragraph see Friedberg, The Weary Titan, op. cit. G.D. Phillips, The Diehards, Aristocratic Society and Politics in Edwardian England (Cambridge 1979) sees despair at popular refusal to face international realities as one element in the radicalization of the traditional upper class. The quote (p. 107) is from the Earl of Selbourne
63. It did so, most obviously, by reducing the state's ability and willingness to take risks in its foreign policy by confidently asserting Russian interests. More dangerous was the fact that foreign governments (particularly in Vienna) understood this fear, themselves rated the chances of revolution in Russia very high in the event of war, and therefore took a more risky and aggressive stance than would otherwise have been the case. On this see in particular: R. Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands. Wie berurteilte die politische und militarische Fübrung der Europäischen Grossmächte in der Zeit von 1905 bis 1914 die Kraft Russlands (Helsinki 1968), chap. 4. These issues are also discussed at length in D.M. McDonald, United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900-1914 (Cambridge 1992) and my own Russia and the Origins, op. cit
64. This is a major theme in two books which have recently been published on the origins of the first world war. They are: D. Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War. Europe 1904-1914 (Oxford 1996)
65. and D.G. Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton 1995)
66. Moskovskiy Ezhenedel'nik, IV, op. cit., 12-14 (3 January 1909)
67. Apart from Friedberg, The Weary Titan, op. cit. see J. Gooch, 'The Weary Titan, Strategy and Policy in Great Britain, 1890-1918' in W. Murray (ed.), The Making of Strategy. Rulers, States and Wars (Cambridge 1994)
68. Max Beloff, Imperial Sunset. Vol. 1. Britain's Liberal Empire 1897-1921 (New York 1970) surveys Britain's position in this era
69. D. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled. British Policy and World Power in the 20th Century (London 1991) sensibly warns against pre-dating British decline
70. R. Hyam, Britain's Imperial Century 1815-1914 (London 1993) is particularly strong in discussing North American aspects of Britain's empire
71. W.R. Louis, Imperialism at Bay (Oxford 1977) and C. Thorne, Allies of a Kind (Oxford 1979) bring out problems of British dependence on the USA in the second world war
72. H.J. Mackinder, 'The Geographical Pivot of History', The Geographical Journal, 23, 4 (1904), 421-44
73. See D. Gillard, The Struggle for Asia, 1828-1914 (London 1977), whose useful survey concludes that by 1914 the Russians were winning the Great Game
74. K. Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar (Oxford 1995), 242
75. See e.g. Nicholas II's comment, cited by D. Lieven, Nicholas II. Emperor of all The Russians (London 1993), 208
76. See J.J. Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Stanford 1994), chaps 1-12
77. Quested, Matey Imperialists, op. cit., e.g. 9-12, makes this point and adds the equally significant one that the Russians were in many respects not at all superior to the Chinese in agriculture, commerce or even industrial production. Contingency and chronology are nevertheless important. The Japanese did subsequently consolidate their hold on Manchuria for a time. Moreover, the Ching government's efforts to keep Chinese immigrants out of Manchuria were sustained until late into the nineteenth century and could, if extended for even a few more years, have led to the province's loss. There was nothing inevitable about Imperial Russia's success by 1914 in bringing Mongolia under her indirect control but failing to do the same as regards Manchuria
78. See M. Hauner, What is Asia to Us? Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (London 1992), 152. From the perspective of 1996 such predictions, of course, appear absurd, but Mendeleev was an exceptionally intelligent man and it is important to see his comments as evidence of how geopolitical predictions in this era were influenced by the great surge of Europeans' numbers, power and territorial possessions in the last century
79. Henry Parkes, 'The father of federation... confidently expected Australia's population to rise to sixty million in 1988': p. 154 in J. Eddy, 'Australia' in J. Eddy and D. Schreuder (eds), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism (Sydney 1988)
80. J.R. Seeley, The Expansion of England (London 1885), 75-6, 300
81. See e.g. the discussion in A. Pagden, Lords of all the World (New Haven, CT 1995), passim but especially chap. 7
82. Seeley, Expansion, op. cit., 75
83. The quote is on p. 155 of Struve, 'Velikaya Rossiya: iz razmyshlenii o probleme russkogo moguchestva', Russkaya Mysl', January 1908: reprinted in R. Pipes (ed.), P.B. Struve. Collected Works in Fifteen Volumes, University Microfilms, 1970, vol. VII
84. Struve, 'Otryvki o gosudarstvi: natsii', Russkaya Mysl', May 1908, vol. VII of P.B. Struve. Collected Works, op. cit., 187
85. See especially Michael Howard, 'Men Against Fire: Expectations of War in 1914', reprinted in S.E. Miller and S.M. Lynn-Jones, Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton 1991). Many of the other articles in this excellent volume also bear on this theme
86. See e.g. Herrmann, Arming of Europe, op. cit., 24-6, 31
87. Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands, op. cit., 60-2 and chap. VI, passim. Russian top military commanders both in the Japanese war and in the first world war were apt to stress their soldiers' relative lack of nationalist commitment as a cause of failure: see e.g. Kuropatkin's comments to General Sir Ian Hamilton recorded in a letter from Sir Arthur Nicolson to Sir Edward Grey, PRO, 371, 514, 10737, 25 March 1908, 79-80
88. and the statement by General N.N. Yanushkevich in 1915 that 'it is beautiful to fight for Russia but the masses do not understand it', M. Cherniavsky (ed.), Prologue to Revolution (Englewood Cliffs 1967), 22. More junior officers who distinguished themselves in these wars, while never denying the crucial importance of national spirit and its overall level in society, put a heavy stress on the extent to which the internal life of the armed forces, and above all the failings and consequent defeats of top commanders, undermined military morale and effectiveness. A.A. Lieven, Dukh i ditsiplina, for example, noted (p. 79) that in the Japanese war junior naval officers came to despise their admirals and that the fleet's worst failings were internal to it rather than a reflection of problems in society
89. See also the discussion of Struve's views on Ukrainian nationalism in R. Pipes, Struve, Liberal on the Right, 1905-1944 (Cambridge 1980)
90. T.R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge 1994) shows how a belief in the innate and possibly irredeemable inferiority of the Indians grew in the nineteenth century as a result of racialist ideas, memories of the mutiny, and an increasing unwillingness to contemplate the thought of Britain ever leaving the sub-continent. James Bryce and Charles Lucas, among others, contrasted English and Roman attitudes to race and assimilation
91. see R. Symonds, Oxford and Empire. The Last Lost Cause? (Oxford 1986), 32-4, 300
92. A. Kappeler, Russland als Vielvolkerreich (Munich 1993) is the outstanding survey of the developing ideologies, institutions and values that sustained Russia's empire
93. S. Layton, Russian Literature and Empire (Cambridge 1994), revolves in large part around a good discussion of these themes
94. J.M. MacKenzie, Orientalism, History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester 1995), makes the valid point that many intelligent European, themselves had considerable doubts about the values of the new urban and materialist civilization they were creating, admired aspects of non-western society and even drew inspiration from them. It was no doubt easier to appreciate such nuances in a London gentlemen's club, however, than when squashed under the juggernaut of western material power and subjected to the vulgar racial arrogance of western colonial society
95. See chap. 4 of Hauner, What is Asia?, op. cit
96. See e.g. M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Dagheston (London 1994). The themes of 'European civilising mission', contempt for the native, and a belief that cultural superiority legitimized and even required violence recur throughout the book. See e.g. p. 34 for the (rather typical) view of General Ermolov: 'In the eyes of Asiatics, humanity is a sign of weakness, and out of pure humanity I am inexorably severe.'
97. Quested, 'Matey Imperialists', op. cit., 279, 282
98. Speransky was responsible for codifying the term 'inorodtsy' which was designed both to define primitive peoples and to afford them special protection; see Kappeler, Russland als Vielvolkerreich, op. cit., 139-41
99. Count K.K. Pahlen, Mission to Turkestan (Oxford 1964) reflects values very similar to those of an aristocratic western statesman inspecting a colony
100. Hugh Kearney, The British Isles. A History of Tour Nations (Cambridge 1989) is excellent
101. See also, A. Grant and K.J. Stringer (eds), Uniting the Kingdoms? The Making of British History (London 1995)
102. See the discussion in Part I of R.E. Foster, Modern Ireland (London 1988), who discusses (p. 42) 'the prejudices of the "civilising mission"', which included 'rationalisation of the Irish as beasts and vermin (which) appear in the literature from the end of the sixteenth century' (p. 34)
103. B. Porter, The Lion's Share. A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-1983 (Harlow 1984), 72, comments that the racial stereotypes of late nineteenth-century British colonists in Africa were very similar to those current among Englishmen in Tudor Ireland
104. J. Kendle, Ireland and the Federal Solution: The Debate over the United Kingdom Constitution, 1870-1921 (Montreal 1989), 21
105. A. Gailey, Ireland and the Death of Kindness. The Experience of Constructive Unionism 1890-1905 (Cork 1987), 61. Kendle, Ireland, op. cit., 108
106. On tsarist colonial policy, the essays in M. Rywkin (ed.), Russian Colonial Expansion to 1917 (London 1988) are a useful introduction. The contrast between A.L.H. Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov, Viceroy to the Tsar (Montreal 1990) and J.M. Ward, Colonial Self-Government: The British Experience 1759-1856 (London 1976) is illuminating
107. This is the main theme of C. Bayley, Imperial Meridian. The British Empire and the World, 1780-1830 (London 1989)
108. For the general background see e.g. E.C. Thaden, Russia's Western Borderlands 1710-1870 (Princeton 1984)
109. Specifically on Alexander I's reign see J. Hartley, 'The "Constitutions" of Finland and Poland in the Reign of Alexander I: Blueprints for Reforms in Russia?', 41-60 in M. Branch, J. Hartley, A. Maczak (eds), Finland and Poland in the Russian Empire (London 1995)
110. See V. Semevsky, Politicheskiya i obshchestvenniya idei Dekahristov (St Petersburg 1909), 511-25
111. and M. Raeff, The Decembrist Movement (New Jersey 1966), 131 ff
112. See J. Pelenski, Russia and Kazan: Conquest and Imperial Ideology (Paris 1974)
113. On Ukraine's incorporation see, above all, Z.E. Kohut, Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy (Cambridge 1988). On tsarist policy subsequently
114. two articles by David Saunders: 'Russia and Ukraine under Alexander II: The Valuev Edict of 1863', International History Review, XVII, 1 (February 1995), 23-50
115. 'Russia's Ukrainian Policy (1847-1905): A Demographic Approach', European History Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1995), 181-208
116. Saunders, 'Russia's Ukrainian Policy', op. cit., 185-7
117. The very low levels of literacy in Ukrainian villages, even by rural Russian standards, are also significant, as is the fact that Ukraine's socio-economic élite was seldom Ukrainian in language, ethnicity or sympathy: see chap. 1, B. Kravchenko, Social Change and National Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Ukraine (London 1985)
118. I.L. Rudnytsky, Essays in Modern Ukrainian History (Cambridge 1987), 32: 'Imperial Russia... was a very poor training place for self-government and civic maturity'. Compare e.g. the situation in Austrian Galicia, described in chap. 1 of A.S. Markovits and EE. Sysyn (eds), Nation-building and the Politics of Nationalism. Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge 1982)
119. The best introduction to this is L. Gogolak, 'Ungarns Nationalitatengesetze und das Problem der Magyarischen National und Zentralstaats' in A. Wandruzska (ed.), Die Hahsburger Monarchic, (MM), Band III, Teil 2: Die Völker des Retches, 1207-303
120. Gogolak,'Ungarns Nationalitätengesetze', op. cit., 1290-4
121. A. Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy 1815-1918 (London 1989): 'The number of assimilated Magyars was scarcely less than the national growth of the Magyars themselves... on the eve of the First World War the proportion of assimilated Magyars accounted for more than a quarter and indeed almost a third of all Magyars' (p. 211). In 1850, 36.5 per cent of the population of Transleithenia defined themselves as Magyars; in 1910, 48.1 per cent. Admittedly, 1850 was a bad time to be a Magyar and 1910 a good one: see p. 414 of HM, III, 2
122. L. Katus,'Die Magyaren', op. cit., 410-88
123. The importance of government jobs is reflected in the fact that there were 16,000 civil servants in 1866 and 119,937 in 1910. 90 per cent of these officials were Magyars, as were 96 per cent of the judges and prosecutors. Jews were enormously over-represented in the free professions. Katus, 'Die Magyaren', op. cit., 479-81
124. A.C. Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825-1945 (Princeton 1982), 94, 177
125. Smith, Origins of the South Africa War, op. cit., 12.2ff, discusses the Selborne Memorandum of 1896 which argued that Transvaal's new gold and diamond wealth was certain to make it the future economic centre of South Africa and to pull the Afrikaners of South Africa into its orbit. The most balanced and up-to-date study of the Austrian position in 1914
126. S.R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (London 1991)
127. D. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War, op. cit., discusses Russian determination to sustain its Balkan clients: see 99-100, 148-9
128. On the Czechs between 1848 and 1918, see HM, III, 1, 489-521. Koralka and Crampton, 'Die Tschechen', op. cit
129. On the German-Austrians in this era see B. Sutter, 'Die politische und rechtliche Stellung der Deutschen in Österreich 1848 bis 1918' in HM, III, 1, 154-339. On the, itself very divided, German community in Hungary (2.1 million strong in 1900 but subject to strong pressures to magyarize or emigrate)
130. F. Gottas, 'Die Deutschen in Ungarn', HM, III, 1, 340-410. On the complicated question of Austrian identity
131. G. Stourzh, Vom Reich zur Republik. Studien zum Osterreichsbeivusstsein im 20 Jahrhundert (Vienna 1990)
132. E. Bruckmuller, 'The National Identity of the Austrians' in M. Teich and R. Porter (eds), The National Question in Europe in Historical Perspective (Cambridge 1993), 196-227. On Franz Joseph and the 1867 compromise see chap. 7 of J.P. Bled, Franz Joseph (Oxford 1994). NB his statement of 1 February 1867: 'I do not conceal from myself that the Slav peoples of the Monarchy may look on the new policies with distrust but the government will never be able to satisfy every national group. This is why we must rely on those which are strongest... that is the Germans and the Hungarians', 52
133. See the extremely informative work by Gerald Stourzh, 'Die Gleichberechtigung der Volksstämme als Verfassungsprinzip 1848-1918', HM, III, 2, chap. XV, 975-1206
134. See R.J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904-1924 (London 1995)
135. D. Lieven, 'The Security Police, Civil Rights, and the Fate of the Russian Empire' in O. Crisp and L. Edmondson (eds), Civil Rights in Imperial Russia (Oxford 1989). S. Sarker describes civil rights in British India as 'both a reality and an important ideological instrument for keeping them (i.e. educated Indians) contented
136. in S. Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947 (London 1983), 138
137. See also Hyam, Britain's Imperial Century, op. cit., 150-7
138. Metcalf, Ideologies, op. cit., 52-6 for thoroughly 'tsarist' and deeply racialist metropolitan British responses to Governor Eyre's gross infringement of civil rights in Jamaica in the face of Black violence. Eyre commented that only the dread of immediate and severe repression could check disorder when a provincial governor had at his disposal a 'mere handful of troops amidst a numerous and disaffected peasantry'
139. See e.g. R. Wormian, The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago 1976). Crisp and Edmondson (eds), Civil Rights, op. cit
140. Stourzh, 'Gleichberechtigung', op. cit., 1042-47 makes this important point
141. See J. Komlos, The Habsburg Monarchy as a Customs Union. Economic Development in Austria-Hungary in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton 1983) which puts Hungarian nationalists firmly in their place by showing that whereas 'Austria... could probably have done as well without Hungary', without the ties to Austria, Hungary's economic development would have been slowed and considerably postponed (p. 19). Even Oskar Jaszi, most moderate of Hungarian politicians, does not do justice to the economic benefits to Hungary of the union with Austria
142. O. Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago 1971), 185ff
143. J.W. Boyer, Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power 1897-1918 (Chicago 1995), 73, 121
144. Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnosbeniy za 1910-1914gg (Moscow 1922), 289-91
145. R.A. Kann, 'Zur Problematik der Nationalitätenfrage in der Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918. Eine Zusammenfassung', HM, III, 2, 1304-38, here, 1331
146. Istvan Deak, 'The Fall of Austro-Hungary: Peace and Stability and Legitimacy' in G. Lundestad (ed.), The Fall of Great Powers (Oslo 1994)
147. N. Stone, 'Army and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1900-1914', Past and Present, vol. 33 (1966)
148. See H.W. Koch, 'Social Darwinism as a Factor in the "New Imperialism"' in Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War (London 1972)
149. C. von der Goltz, 'Stärke and Schwäche des türkischen Reiches', Deutsche Rundschau, Band LXXXXIII, Oct/Dec 1897, 95-119
150. see also U. Ostergaard, 'The European Character of the Ottoman Empire' in L. Anderson (ed.), Middle East Studies in Denmark (Odense 1994). On the nature of Ottoman rule set against a comparative Islamic background
151. S. Gellner, 'Tribalism and the State in the Middle East' in P.S. Khoury and J. Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State formation in the Middle East (Berkeley 1990), 109-26
152. A. Raymond, 'Les provinces Arabes (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)' in Mantran (ed.), Empire Ottoman, comments (p. 356): 'Far from being destroyed by the new regime, the old dominant aristocracy was thus called on to share power and it needed only a little more than a century for a representative of the Mamlouks, Ridwan Bey, to exercise a quasi-monarchical authority over Egypt'. For the shallowness of the Ottoman power in Egypt
153. see also M. Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule 1517-1798 (London 1992)
154. On the Greeks see, in particular, R. Clogg, 'The Greek Millet in the Ottoman Empire' in Braude and Lewis, Christians and Jews, op. cit., 185-207
155. On the Armenians see 'The Dual Role of the Armenian Amira class within the Ottoman Government and the Armenian Millet (1750-1850)', 171-84
156. Feroz Ahmed, 'Unionist Relations with the Greek, Armenian and Jewish Communities of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914', 401-32, both in the same volume
157. Jeremy Salt argues that the artisan class was the main social base for Armenian radical nationalism and that prosperous elite Ottoman Armenians loathed the revolutionaries and were frequently the victims of their terrorism: Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians (London 1993), 61-2
158. In the Armenian case it is important to take account of parallel but also distinct developments within Russian Armenia: see R. Suny, Looking towards Arafat. Armenia in Modern History (Indiana 1993), especially chaps 2,3,4
159. On this, see above all the very useful essays in R. Khalidi et al. (eds), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York 1991)
160. After studying pre-war Arab nationalist movements, E. Tauber concludes (The Emergence of the Arab Movements [London 1993], 304) that 'mostly Muslims, the Arabs considered the Ottoman Sultan their caliph and believed that their religion obligated them to the Muslim Empire to the end. Many of them considered the Arab nationalist tendency to be bid'a and deviation from religion. And many feared that the alternative to the Ottoman Empire would be the occupation of their countries by foreign, Christian powers.' The main conclusions to be drawn from the essays in Khalidi's volume are regional diversity, fear of European annexation, and a dispute between scholars about how deep, irreversible and justified was alienation from the Ottoman regime among the Muslim Syrian intelligentsia
161. Yapp, Making of the Modern Middle East, op. cit., chap. 4, especially 179-83
162. C.V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte 1789-1922 (Princeton 1980), chaps 5 and 6. For a comparative insight see chap. 3
163. The King's Dilemma', of S.P. Huntingdon, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT 1968). As is so often true, there are many interesting comparisons to be made between the problems and strategies of Russian and Ottoman 'autocrats'. On the former see chap. 5 in Lieven, Nicholas II, op. cit
164. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform, op. cit., 297-8 states that 27,000 officials were purged as a result of the 1909 administrative reform law and that the regime paid a very heavy price for this in terms of popularity
165. W. Ochsenwald, 'Ironic Origins: Arab Nationalism in the Hijaz, 1882-1914', 189-203 in Khalidi (ed.), Origins, op. cit., esp. 193-201. Provincial privileges, not Arab nationalism, were the key issue in Hejaz
166. M.S. Hanioglu, The Young Turks in Opposition (Oxford 1995), on the roots of Young Turk thought. I am grateful to Dr Yassammee of Manchester University for drawing my attention to the content of the original documents printed as appendices to the Turkish edition but omitted in the English-language edition. They considerably amplify and develop Hanioglu's argument
167. See in particular J.M. Landau, Pan-Turkism. From Irredentism to Cooperation (London 1995), chaps 1 and 2
168. The declaration of war stated: 'The ideal of our nation and our people leads us towards the destruction of our Muscovite enemy, in order to obtain thereby a natural frontier to our Empire, which should include and unite all branches of our race', Landau, Pan-Turkism, op. cit., 52
169. Ulrich Trumpener, 'Suez, Baku, Gallipoli: The Military Dimensions of the German-Ottoman Coalition, 1914-18', notes Enver's obsession with the Caucasus and the conflicts over strategy that resulted with the Germans: see p. 387
170. B. Kiraly and N.F. Dreisziger (eds), East Central European Society in World War I (New York 1985)
171. Yapp, Making of the Modern Near East, op. cit., 135-6
172. On the last decades of Ottoman Lebanon see E. Akarli, The Long Peace (London 1993)
173. The most recent European contribution to this major debate is B.H. Reid, The Origins of the American Civil War (London 1996), chap. 2
174. See also chap. 2 of P.D. Escott, After Secession. Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge 1978)
175. Above all, see D. Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge 1988)
176. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London 1991). An extremely useful aspect of this attractive book is its coverage of the development of colonial nationalism
177. W.R. Taylor, Cavalier and Yankee (New York 1961)
178. A point rather over-stressed in my view by R.E. Beringer, H. Hattawy, A. Jones, W.N. Still, Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens 1986), chap. 4
179. Points made well by G.W. Gallagher, The Confederate War (Cambridge, MA 1997) and in a recent collection of essays on the subject: G. S. Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost (Oxford 1992)
180. On the German decision to launch the U-Boat war, see K.E. Birnbaum, Peace Moves and U-Boat Warfare (Uppsala 1958) and chap. 24 of A. Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford 1989), 354-67
181. On the diplomatic context see David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford 1988), 64-86 for a good recent summary. On America in the first world war see D.M. Kennedy, Over Here (Oxford 1980)
182. Without the USA the allies would definitely have lacked the financial means, almost definitely the will, and very probably the manpower to defeat Germany. Even after the American declaration of war in mid-1917, the prospects of Russia's withdrawal caused Lord Milner to declare that the allies could not hope to defeat Germany and Lloyd George to contemplate a compromise peace based on swapping Belgium for the German colonies. 'Prior to 1917 Germany suffered more deaths in the east than in the west', K. Neilson, Strategy and Supply (London 1984), 262, 284, 314
183. H.J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York 1942), 149-50