Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The vast country of Brazil was a colony of Portugal. This also became independent about the same time as the Spanish colonies of America. So we find that by 1830 the whole of South America was free from European domination. In North America there was of course the British colony of Canada.

  We now come to Asia. In India the English were now undoubtedly the predominant Power. During the Napoleonic wars in Europe the English had consolidated their position and even taken possession of Java. Tippu Sultan in Mysore had been vanquished, and in 1819 the Maratha power was finally overthrown. In the Punjab, however, there was a Sikh State under Ranjit Singh. All over India the British were creeping on and spreading. In the east, Assam was annexed, and Arakan— Burma—remained for the next mouthful.

  While Britain spread in India, another great European Power, Russia, was spreading in Central Asia. Already it touched the Pacific in the east and China. Now it was rolling down through the petty States of Central Asia right to the frontier of Afghanistan. The British in India grew afraid of this giant approaching them, and in their nervousness provoked a war with Afghanistan without the shadow of an excuse. But they burnt their fingers badly.

  China was under the Manchus, suspecting, with good reason, the foreigners who came in the name of trade or religion, and trying to keep them out. But the foreigners continued to shout and misbehave at her gates, and especially encouraged the traffic in opium. The East India Company had the monopoly of the British China trade. The Chinese Emperor prohibited the entry of opium, but smuggling continued, and the foreigners carried on an illegal trade in opium. This resulted in a war with England, rightly called the Opium War, and the British forced the Chinese to take opium.

  I told you long ago of the shutting up of Japan in 1634. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was still closed to all outsiders. But within its closed borders the old Shogunate was getting weaker, and new conditions were rising which were going to put a sudden end to the old system. Farther south, in south-eastern Asia, European Powers were absorbing territory. The Spanish still held the Philippine Islands. The Portuguese had been driven away by the English and Dutch. The Dutch got back Java and the other islands after the Congress of Vienna. The English were spreading out to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula. Annam, Siam and Burma were still independent, though they paid an occasional tribute to China.

  Very roughly this was the political state of the world during the fifteen years from Waterloo to 1830. Europe was definitely coming out as the boss of the world; and in Europe itself reaction was triumphant. The emperors and kings, and even the reactionary Parliament of England, thought that they had finally crushed liberal ideas. They tried to bottle up these ideas. They failed, of course, and there were repeated revolts.

  The political changes seem to dominate the scene. Yet far more important was the great revolution in methods of production and distribution and travel that began with the Industrial Revolution of England. Silently but irresistibly this was spreading in Europe and North America, and was changing the outlook and habits of millions, and the relations between different classes. New ideas were emerging out of the clanging of the machinery, and a new world was being built up. Europe was growing more and more efficient and deadly, more and more greedy and imperialistic and callous. The spirit of Napoleon seemed to pervade it. But in Europe also were growing up ideas which were destined to fight and overthrow imperialism.

  Also there is the literature and poetry and music of this period that fascinates. But I must not allow my pen to run on. It has done enough duty for today.

  107

  The Hundred Years before the World War

  November 22, 1932

  Napoleon fell in 1814; he returned from Elba next year and was again defeated, but his system had collapsed in 1814. Exactly 100 years later, in 1914, began the Great War, which spread almost all over the world and, during the four years that it lasted, caused terrible loss and suffering. We shall have to consider this period of 100 years in some detail. Already, in my last letter, I have tried to give you a rough idea of the world as it was when this period began. It is worthwhile, I think, for us to have a look at the century as a whole before we examine bits of it in different countries. In this way, perhaps, we shall have a better idea of the main currents during these 100 years, and thus see the wood as well as the trees.

  These 100 years from 1814 to 1914 fell, as you will of course notice, very largely in the nineteenth century. We might as well refer to them, therefore, as the nineteenth century, although this would not be quite accurate.

  The nineteenth century is a fascinating period. But the study of it is no easy matter for us. It is a vast panorama, a great picture, and because we are so near to it, it appears to us bigger and fuller than the centuries that preceded it. This bigness and complexity are rather apt to overwhelm us at times, as we try to unravel the thousand threads that go to make it up.

  It was the century of marvellous mechanical progress. The Industrial Revolution brought in its train the Mechanical Revolution, and machines became more and more important in man’s life. They did a great deal that man had done before, and eased his drudgery, and lessened his dependence on the elements, and produced wealth for him. Science helped greatly, and travel and transport became swifter and ever swifter. The railway came and displaced the stagecoach; the steamship took the place of the sailing-ship, and then came the great ocean liner, powerful and stately, going from continent to continent with speed and regularity. Towards the end of the century came the automobile, and motor-cars spread out all over the world. And lastly came the aeroplane. At the same time man began to control and utilize a new wonder—electricity—and the telegraph and telephone appeared. All this made a vast difference to the world. As the means of communication developed and people travelled faster and faster, the world seemed to shrink and become much smaller. We are used to all this today, and we seldom think about it. But all these improvements and changes are newcomers to this world of ours; they have all come within the last 100 years.

  It was also the century of Europe, or rather of western Europe, and especially of England. The Industrial and Mechanical Revolutions had begun and progressed there, and they gave a great lead to western Europe. England was predominant in sea-power and industry, but gradually the other countries of western Europe caught up with it. The United States of America also forged ahead with this new mechanical civilization, and railroads carried them westwards to the Pacific, and made the huge country one nation. They were too busy with their own problems and their expansion to trouble themselves much about Europe and the rest of the world. But they were strong enough to resent and prevent any interference from Europe. The Monroe Doctrine, about which I told you in my last letter, preserved the republics of South America from the greed of Europe. These republics are called the Latin republics, as they were founded by people from Spain and Portugal. These two countries, as well as Italy and France, are called Latin nations. The northern countries of Europe are, on the other hand, Teutonic, England being the Anglo-Saxon branch of the Teutons. The people of the United States of America originally came from this Anglo-Saxon stock, but of course all kinds of immigrants have gone there since.

  The rest of the world was backward industrially and mechanically, and could not compete with the new mechanical civilization of the West. The new machine industries of Europe produced goods far more rapidly and abundantly than the old cottage-industries. But to produce these goods raw material was required, and much of this was not to be had in western Europe; and when the goods were produced, they had to be sold, and so markets for them were necessary. So western Europe searched for countries which would provide this raw material and buy the manufactured goods. Asia and Africa were weak, and Europe fell on them like a beast of prey. In the race for empire, England, by virtue of her lead in industry and her sea-power, was easily first.

  You will remember that Europeans first came to India and the East to buy spices and other articles in demand in Eu
rope. Thus Eastern goods went to Europe, and many a product of an Eastern handloom went West. But now, with the development of the machine, this process was reversed. The cheaper goods of western Europe came to the East, and the cottage-industries of India were deliberately killed by the East India Company in order to encourage the sale of English goods.

  Europe sat on giant Asia. In the north the Russian Empire sprawled across the whole continent. In the south England had firm hold over the biggest prize of all—India. In the west the Turkish Empire was going to pieces, and Turkey was referred to as the “Sick Man of Europe”. Persia, nominally independent, was dominated by England and Russia. The whole of southeastern Asia—Burma, Indo-China, Malay, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, etc.—was absorbed by Europe, with the exception of a bit of Siam. In the Far East China was being nibbled at by all the European powers and concession after concession was forced out of her. Only Japan stood upright and faced Europe as an equal. She had come out of her seclusion and adjusted herself to the new conditions with remarkable rapidity.

  Africa was very backward, except for Egypt. It could offer no effective resistance to Europe, and so the European Powers fell on it in a mad race for empire and divided up this huge continent. England occupied Egypt, for it was on the way to India, and British policy henceforth was dominated by the desire to hold on to India. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, and this made the journey from Europe to India much shorter;

  it also made Egypt more valuable to England, for Egypt could interfere with the canal, and thus controlled the sea-route to India.

  So, as a result of the Mechanical Revolution, capitalist civilization spread all over the world and Europe was dominant everywhere. And capitalism led to imperialism. So that the century might also be called the century of imperialism. But this new Imperial Age was very different from the old imperialisms of Rome and China and India and the Arabs and Mongols. There was a new type of empire, hungry for raw materials and markets. The new imperialism was the child of the new industrialism. “Trade follows the flag”, it was said, and often enough the flag followed the Bible. Religion, science, the love of one’s own country, all were prostituted to one end—the exploitation of the weaker and industrially more backward peoples of the earth, so that the lords of the big machine, the princes of industrialism, might grow richer and richer. The Christian missionary, going in the name of truth and love, was often the outpost of empire, and if any harm befell him, his country made this an excuse to seize territory and extort concessions.

  The capitalist organization of industry and civilization led inevitably to this imperialism. Capitalism also led to an intensification of the feeling of nationalism, so that you can also call this century the century of nationalism. This nationalism was not merely a love of one’s own country, but a hatred of all others. From this glorification of one’s own patch of land and contemptuous running down of others, trouble and friction between different countries were bound to result. Industrial rivalry and imperial rivalry between different European countries made matters worse. The map of Europe as settled by the Congress of Vienna in 1814– 15 was another irritating factor. According to this, some nationalities had been suppressed and put forcibly under other people’s rule. Poland had disappeared as a nation. Austria-Hungary became an ill-assorted empire containing all manner of people cordially disliking each other. The Turkish Empire in the south-east of Europe contained many non-Turkish peoples in the Balkans. Italy was split up into many States, and part of it was under Austria. Repeated attempts were made through war and revolution to change this map of Europe. In my last letter I mentioned some which followed soon after the Vienna settlement. In the second half of the century Italy managed to shake off the Austrians in the north and the Pope’s domination in the centre, and became a united nation. This was followed soon afterwards by the unification of Germany under the leadership of Prussia. France was defeated and humiliated by Germany and deprived of two of her frontier provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, and from that day she dreamt of revanche (revenge). In less than fifty years there was a bloody and terrible revenge.

  England, with her great lead, was the most fortunate of the European countries. She held all the prizes, and was well content with things as they were. India was the model of the new type of empire, a rich territory from the exploitation of which a river of gold flowed ceaselessly to England. All the other would-be empire-builders envied this possession of India by England. They sought to build empires elsewhere after this Indian model. The French succeeded in some measure; the Germans came rather late into the field, and there was little left for them. So there was political tension all over the world between these “Great Powers” of Europe, each trying to swallow more and more territory and coming up against another engaged in the same process. Between England and Russia especially there was continuous friction, for Russia seemed to threaten England’s possession of India from Central Asia. So England was always trying to checkmate Russia. When Russia, in the middle of the century, defeated Turkey and coveted Constantinople, England came down on the side of Turkey and drove Russia back. England did this not out of love for Turkey, but from fear of Russia and of losing India.

  England’s industrial lead gradually grew less and less as Germany and France and the United States crept up to her. By the end of the century matters were coming to a head. The world was too small for the vast ambitions of these European Powers. Each feared and hated and envied the other, and this fear and hatred made them increase their armies and their ships of war. There was a feverish competition in these engines of destruction. There were also alliances between different countries to fight others, and ultimately two systems of alliances faced each other in Europe—one was headed by France, to which England also privately adhered, and the other was headed by Germany. Europe became an armed camp. And there was ever fiercer competition in industry and trade and armaments. And a narrow spirit of nationalism was whipped up in each Western country, so that the masses might be misled and made to hate their neighbours in other countries, and thus be kept ready for war.

  A blind nationalism thus began to dominate Europe. This was strange, for the speeding up of communications had brought different countries closer to each other and many more people travelled. One would have thought that as people grew to know their neighbours better, their prejudices would lessen and their narrow-mindedness give place to a broader outlook. To some extent this undoubtedly took place, but the whole structure of society under the new industrial capitalism was such that it bred friction between nation and nation, class and class, and man and man.

  Nationalism also grew in the East. It took the shape of resistance to the foreigner, who was dominating and exploiting the country. At first the feudal relics in Eastern countries resisted foreign domination, because they felt that their position was threatened. They failed, as they were bound to do. A new nationalism then arose tinged with a religious outlook. Gradually this religious colouring faded off and a nationalism of the Western type emerged. In Japan, foreign domination was avoided, and an intense half-feudal nationalism was encouraged.

  Asia began to resist European aggression from the earliest days, but the resistance became half-hearted when the power and efficiency of the new weapons which the European armies possessed were realized. The growth of science and the mechanical progress made in Europe had made these European armies far more powerful than anything the East had then. Eastern countries therefore felt powerless before them and bowed their heads in despair. Some people say that the East is spiritual and the West material. This kind of remark is very deceptive. The real difference between the East and the West at the time when Europe came as aggressor, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the medievalism of the East and the industrial and mechanical progress of the West. India and other Eastern countries were dazzled at first, not only by the military efficiency of the West, but also by their scientific and technical progress. All this combined to give them a feeling of inferiority i
n regard to military and technical matters. In spite of this, however, nationalism grew, and the desire to resist foreign aggression and turn out the foreigner. Early in the twentieth century an event occurred which had a great effect on the mind of Asia. This was the defeat of Tsarist Russia by Japan. For little Japan to defeat one of the greatest and most powerful of European Powers surprised most people; in Asia the surprise was a most pleasant one. Japan was looked upon as the representative of Asia battling against Western aggression and, for the moment, became very popular all over the East. Of course Japan was no such representative of Asia, and she fought for her own hand just like any Great Power of Europe. I remember well how excited I used to get when news came of the Japanese victories. I was about your age then.