Europe: A History (156 page)

Throughout the nineteenth century, most European governments were striving to foster the conditions that would take their countries from economic ignition to social ‘take-off’. Some succeeded; some did not; some had no chance of success
in the first place. After Britain’s lonely start, most of the countries of northwestern Europe followed suit in the middle of the century—first Belgium and Holland, then Prussia, Piedmont, and France. By the end of the century Britain’s lead was being rapidly overhauled by the superior resources and dynamism of a united Germany.

Most countries showed marked contrasts between modernized metropolitan regions and their outlying provinces. Within the United Kingdom, England began to look very different from the outlying highlands and islands. Highly developed regions began to appear along the Paris-Lyons-Marseilles axis in France; along the Lille-Liège-Rotterdam axis in the Low Countries; along the Rhineland-Ruhr-Berlin-Saxony-Silesia axis in Germany; in the Bohemia-Vienna-Budapest core of Austria-Hungary; in Lombardy within the united Italy. Provinces such as Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, or Sicily were highly underdeveloped. The Russian Empire, despite regional contrasts of the most extreme degree, was accelerating rapidly towards modernization in the last years before 1914.

Owing to differential developments both between states and within states, the existing economic contrasts within Europe were greatly accentuated. Indeed, in the course of the nineteenth century, two distinct economic zones emerged: an advanced, predominantly industrialized and modernized zone in the North and West, and a backward, industrializing but largely unmodernized zone in the South and East. The former participated in the ‘worldwide maritime economy’, still dominated by Great Britain, and like Britain was able to boost its performance by the acquisition of overseas colonies. The latter could only act as a dependent source of food, raw materials, and cheap migrant labour, and as a captive market for manufactured goods.

The one major discrepancy lay with Germany, which, though it became the most dynamic country of the industrialized zone, was prevented for reasons of politics and timing from acquiring a commensurate collection of colonies. As a result, once Germany was united in 1871, it forged close economic links with the countries of Eastern Europe, thereby compensating itself for its colonial failures. Whereas in former times the divide between Western and Eastern Europe had largely been religious and political in nature, it now assumed strong economic overtones.

Industrialization in Eastern Europe was confined to localized areas which stood out like islands in a sea of rural backwardness. Such islands grew up in northern Bohemia, in the triangle of Lodz-Warsaw-Dąbrowa, in the cotton mills of Nizhny Novgorod and St Petersburg, in the Donbass, and in the oilfields of Galicia, Romania, and the Caspian. What is more, these islands were not just geographically isolated: even at the end of the century, they generated insufficient momentum for driving the economy as a whole to the point of take-off. The consequences, both social and strategic, were considerable. The mass of the peasant population suffered mounting distress; they were freed from former obligations on the land but were given no adequate opportunity for betterment in the towns. They could benefit neither from modern agriculture nor from any significant
degree of industrial employment. What is more, in a poor society, the state had to tax its poverty-stricken subjects mercilessly. Here were the makings of social and political revolt. Seeing this, and fearing the dynamism of Germany, the Western Powers decided to bolster their political
rapprochement
with Russia with a campaign for massive investment. In 1890–1914 French, British, and Belgian investment in Russia mounted mightily, fuelling a massive increase in Russia’s railway mileage, industrial production, and foreign trade.

The question remains whether an all-European economy existed or not. The answer is probably not. But if it did—and those massive Western investments in Russia heralded growing economic integration—then the pivotal position clearly came to be occupied by Germany. By 1900 Germany combined a major stake in the industry and commerce of the West with a dominant role in the economics of the East.

Given the contrast between Germany’s economic precocity and her political retardation, it is not surprising that modernization’s leading theorists were both Germans. Yet Friedrich List (1789–1846), whose
National System of Political Economy
was published in 1841, derived very different conclusions from those of Karl Marx (see pp. 837–8). For Marx, the motor of change was to be found in the class struggle; for List, it was to be found in the economic policy of the state, which could foster development by protectionist tariffs and by heavy investment in infrastructure and education. List was the most coherent advocate of what others have called the ‘Prussian road to capitalism’—an example which excited the imagination of many, especially in Eastern Europe, who longed to follow in Prussia’s steps.
⁵

At the time few Europeans bothered to ask the fundamental question why this modernization occurred in Europe rather than elsewhere. The answer would seem to lie in a particular
coincidence
of ecological, economic, social, cultural, and political circumstances, which other more ancient and highly sophisticated civilizations did not possess. The emphasis lies on coincidence—in other words, on ‘the European miracle’.
⁶

Seen in detail, the process of modernization can be broken down into an apparently endless chain of sub-processes and new developments, each interacting with the others. Apart from the dozen factors which contributed to the initial Industrial Revolution, some thirty others have to be taken into account as change fuelled change in the economic, social, cultural, psychological, political, and military spheres. (See Appendix III, p. 1293.)

Agricultural production benefited from the gradual introduction of machines, from McCormick’s horse-drawn reapers (1832) to steam-driven threshers, and eventually to petrol-driven tractors (1905). The export of agricultural machinery was a major item in the trade between industrial and non-industrial regions. More machines meant fewer hands on the farm, and more people who could migrate to town and factory.

The mobility of labour was greatly increased during the Revolutionary wars,
when serfdom was abolished in France, Italy, and Spain, and when millions of soldiers left their villages never to return. In Eastern Europe the emancipation of the serfs took place over several later decades. It caused much misery in Prussia in 1811–48, where brutal rentification of services often led to forcible clearances. It happened overnight in Austria in 1848, leaving a trail of unresolved disputes. It was effected in the Russian Empire by the
ukaz of
1861, in the Kingdom of Poland by the
ukaz
of April 1864.

New sources of power were brought in to supplement ‘King Coal’, first with gas, then with oil, and later with the commercial use of electricity. Pall Mall in London had been illuminated by gas lights in 1813; and coal-gas was generally available in Britain for domestic and urban use from the 1820s. Oil was available from the 1860s. Oilfields were opened up in Europe at Borystaw (Galicia), at Ploesti (Romania), and at Baku on the Caspian. With time, the internal combustion engine (1889) was to prove as revolutionary as the steam engine. Electricity became widely available only in the 1880s, following Gramme’s perfection of the dynamo (1869) and the construction by Deprez of high-tension transmission cables (1881). It could produce heat, light, and traction. The debut of’la Fée Élec-tricité’ took place at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. At that time, 92 per cent of the world’s energy still came from coal.

Power-driven machines and engines were applied to an ever-widening range of operations, from conveyor belts to steamboats. The critical developments, however, were those of machine tools—machines that manufactured machines—and of power tools, such as the steam-hammer or pile-driver, which eliminated the manual element from heavy operations. Henry Maudslay (1771–1831) of Woolwich, inventor of the metal lathe (1797), is sometimes seen as the father of the field.

Mining, for all the advances in pumping and safety, remained a labour-intensive industry. In 1900 as in 1800, millions of European coalminers crouched at the coalface, pick in hand, selling their health for a high wage and silicosis. Iron-mining was centred on the rich ‘Minette’ deposits in Luxemburg-Lorraine, in northern Spain, in northern Sweden, and at Krivoi Rog in Ukraine. Metallurgy made greater progress. A series of advances in blast-furnace design culminated in Sir Henry Bessemer’s Converter at Sheffield (1856) and in Martin’s open-hearth process at Sireuil (1864). The Railway Age was supplied with cheap, high-quality steel which, apart from rails, could be used for bridges, ships, building frames, munitions. In the 1880s advances in the theory and practice of allotropy brought a wide range of high-grade alloys on to the markets, with specialized uses in tool-making and artillery. Electro-metallurgy facilitated aluminium production. If the eighteenth-century ironmasters were the princes of the first Industrial Revolution, the steelmakers of the late nineteenth century, such as Schneider of Le Creusot or Krupp of Essen, were their true heirs apparent. Steel production became the key index of industrial power. (See Appendix III, pp. 1296–7).

Transport improved dramatically in speed, efficiency, and comfort. Roads entered a new era with John McAdam’s stone and tar surface (1815), only fully
utilized after the arrival of the motor car. Bridging acquired fresh dimensions with Telford’s first suspension bridge at the Menai Straits (1819). Railways carried ever more passengers and freight ever more cheaply and faster. Overland travel time between Paris and St Petersburg was cut from 20 days in 1800 to 30 hours in 1900. Europeans were united by the romance and the utility of their railways. By the turn of the century, by far the densest network had been built in Belgium (42.8 km of track per 100 km
²
as compared to 19 km in the UK and 17.2 km in Germany). By far the most extensive provision had been made in Sweden (27 km per 10,000 inhabitants as against 12.2 km in Belgium). By far the worst provision had been made in Serbia (2.5 km per 10,000 as compared with 5.7 km in European Russia),
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In aviation, the Montgolfiers’ hot-air balloon, first tested on 5 June 1783 at Annonay near Lyons, made ballooning an important military skill throughout the nineteenth century. It was superseded by Count Zeppelin’s dirigible airship (1900) and shortly afterwards by aeroplanes. In the 1890s Otto Lilienthal pioneered gliding in Germany, and in 1903 at Dayton (Ohio) the Wright Brothers achieved manned, petrol-driven flight. On 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot sensationally flew a monoplane across the English Channel in 31 minutes.

Communication systems improved in parallel. The creation of unified postal services made rapid correspondence available to all. Postage stamps made their appearance with Great Britain’s ‘Penny Black’ on 1 May 1840. They were introduced in Zurich and Geneva (1843), in France and Bavaria (1849), in Prussia, Austria, and Spain (1850), in Sweden (1855), in Russia and Romania (1858), in Poland (i860), in Iceland (1873). The invention of the electric telegraph (1835), of the telephone (1877), and of radio (1896) rendered long-distance communication instantaneous. The most famous demonstration of the value of superior communication was staged on 19 June 1815, when Nathan Rothschild made a record killing on the London stock market, having used a special yacht to bring news of Waterloo many hours in advance of his rivals. Important improvements in international communications were effected by the International Postal Union (1874), the International Telegraph Union (1875), the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (1875), and the Central Bureau for Railway Traffic (1890).
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Capital investment multiplied in proportion to growing returns. Private firms reinvested growing profits; governments invested a growing proportion of rising taxation. A bottomless demand for capital exhausted the possibilities of private borrowing, and revived the potential for joint-stock companies (which in England and France, though not Scotland, had been curtailed since the Bubble disaster of 1720). From the 1820s the limited joint-stock company became familiar all over Europe. These
sociétés anonymes
(SA) or
Aktiengesellschaft
(AG) or ‘Company Limited’, with their shareholders and their AGMs, paid dividends to their investors whilst owing only limited liability to their creditors. Soon, through ‘horizontal’ mergers or ‘vertical’ contracts, they were combining themselves into ever-larger conglomerates—either consolidated trusts or confederated cartels. In Britain, where fears of monopoly were strong, trusts and cartels were slow to develop. Many of the largest British companies, such as the steamship lines P. & O. or Cunard, appeared in the 1840s. But in France cartels were common. In united Germany there was little opposition to enormous trusts or
Konzernen
on the American model, which dominated each sector of the market.