- Tsar Alexander I
In the Tsar Alexander I, who was never direct, this direct new imperialism met the old. Hitherto the kings and potentates of the world had taken themselves in good faith, had had the support of religion in their consciences, had believed they were serving God in their kingship, and that they were necessary to mankind and beneficial to mankind. In many cases they were no doubt swayed by very mixed motives, his majesty had “weaknesses,” his majesty almost always had a sensitive personal vanity. Sometimes, indeed, a born rascal like Charles II of England would have the grace or the gracelessness to laugh at himself, but the generality of kings and tyrants had the profoundest faith in themselves, and were sustained by the sincere faith of their loyal supporters. The emperor Charles V and his son Philip II, Charles I of England, Louis XIV, and the Tsar Alexander were all inspired by a complete assurance of their own righteousness, were convinced that opposition to them was sheer wickedness, wickedness to be overcome in any way and punished with the utmost severity. - Africa in the Middle of 19th Century
Africa in the Middle of 19th Century - Africa, 1914
Africa, 1914 - American Colonies, 1760
American Colonies, 1760 - Arabia and Adjacent Countries
Arabia and Adjacent Countries - Benjamin Franklin
It is hard to measure the men of one period of history with those in another. Some writers, even American writers, impressed by the artificial splendours of the European courts and by the tawdry and destructive exploits of a Frederick the Great or a Great Catherine, display a snobbish shame of something homespun about these makers of America. They feel that Benjamin Franklin at the court of Louis XVI, with his long hair, his plain clothes, and his pawky manner, was sadly lacking in aristocratic distinction. But stripped to their personalities, Louis XVI was hardly gifted enough or noble-minded enough to be Franklin’s valet. - Bismarck
Prussian affairs were then very much in the hands of a minister of the seventeenth-century type, Von Bismarck (count in 1865, prince in 1871), and he saw brilliant opportunities in this trouble. He became the champion of the German nationality in these duchies—it must be remembered that the King of Prussia had refused to undertake this rôle for democratic Germany in 1848—and he persuaded Austria to side with Prussia in a military intervention. Denmark had no chance against these Great Powers; she was easily beaten and obliged to relinquish the duchies. Then Bismarck picked a quarrel with Austria for the possession of these two small states. So he brought about a needless and fratricidal war of Germans for the greater glory of Prussia and the ascendancy of the Hohenzollern dynasty in Germany. German writers of a romantic turn of mind represent Bismarck as a great statesman planning the unity of Germany; but indeed he was doing nothing of the kind. - Boston in 1775
Boston in 1775 - Britain, France, and Spain in America, 1750
Britain, France, and Spain in America, 1750 - Central Europe, 1648
Central Europe, 1648 - Charles V
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Most of the figures that stand out in history, do so through some exceptional personal quality, good or bad, that makes them more significant than their fellows. But there was born at Ghent in Belgium in 1500 a man of commonplace abilities and melancholy temperament, the son of a mentally defective mother who had been married for reasons of state, who was, through no fault of his own, to become the focus of the accumulating stresses of Europe. The historian must give him a quite unmerited and accidental prominence side by side with such marked individualities as Alexander and Charlemagne and Frederick II. This was the Emperor Charles V. For a time he had an air of being the greatest monarch in Europe since Charlemagne. Both he and his illusory greatness were the results of the matrimonial statecraft of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I (born 1459, died 1519). - Chief Foreign Settlements in India, 17th Century
Chief Foreign Settlements in India, 17th Century - Comparative Maps of Asia under Different Projections
Comparative Maps of Asia (a) as part of hemisphere (b) on Mercators projection to show relative sizes of Asiatic Russia and India in the two cases. - Emperor William II
By one of those accidents in history that personify and precipitate catastrophes, the ruler of Germany, the emperor William II, embodied the new education of his people and the Hohenzollern tradition in the completest form. He came to the throne in 1888 at the age of twenty-nine; his father, Frederick III, had succeeded his grandfather, William I, in the March, to die in the June of that year. William II was the grandson of Queen Victoria on his mother’s side, but his temperament showed no traces of the liberal German tradition that distinguished the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family. His head was full of the frothy stuff of the new imperialism. He signalized his accession by an address to his army and navy; his address to his people followed three days later. A high note of contempt for democracy was sounded: “The soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities, have welded together the German Empire. My trust is placed in the army.” So the patient work of the German schoolmasters was disowned, and the Hohenzollern declared himself triumphant. - Empire of Jengis Khan, 1227
Empire of Jengis Khan, 1227 - Empire of Otto the Great
Empire of Otto the Great - Empire of Timurlane
Empire of Timurlane - England, 640 A.D.
England, 640 A.D. - England, 878 A.D
England, 878 A.D - Europe after the Congress of Vienna
Europe after the Congress of Vienna - Europe and Asia, 1200
Europe and Asia, 1200 - Europe at the Death of Charlemagne
Europe at the Death of Charlemagne - Europe at the Fall of Constantinople
Europe at the Fall of Constantinople - Europe in 1714
Europe in 1714 - Europe in the Time of Charles V
Europe in the Time of Charles V - Europe, 500 A.D.
Europe, 500 A.D. - European Trade Routes in the 14th Century
European Trade Routes in the 14th Century - France at the Close of the 10th Century
France at the Close of the 10th Century - Francis I
Charles realized that his great empire was in very serious danger both from the west and from the east. On the west of him was his spirited rival, Francis I; to the east was the Turk in Hungary, in alliance with Francis and clamouring for certain arrears of tribute from the Austrian dominions. - Frankish Dominions in the Time of Charles Martel
Frankish Dominions in the Time of Charles Martel - George Washington
George Washington - Germany after the Peace Treaty, 1919
Germany after the Peace Treaty, 1919 - Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England, who had begun his career with a book written against heresy, and who had been rewarded by the Pope with the title of “Defender of the Faith,” being anxious to divorce his first wife in favour of an animated young lady named Anne Boleyn,and wishing also to turn against the Emperor in favour of Francis I and to loot the vast wealth of the church in England, joined the company of Protestant princes in 1530. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had already gone over to the Protestant side. - Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius began his career as a very tough and gallant young Spaniard. He was clever and dexterous and inspired by a passion for pluck, hardihood, and rather showy glory. His love affairs were free and picturesque. In 1521 the French took the town of Pampeluna in Spain from the Emperor Charles V, and Ignatius was one of the defenders. His legs were smashed by a cannon-ball, and he was taken prisoner. One leg was badly set and had to be broken again, and these painful and complex operations nearly cost him his life. - India in 1750
India in 1750 - Ireland
Ireland - Italy, 1861
Italy, 1861 - Japan and the East Coast of Asia
Japan and the East Coast of Asia - “We have the payne and traveyle, rayne and wynd in the feldes”
Farmers sowing and plowing their fields - Louis XIV
On such terms of unrighteousness what we may call “Grand Monarchy” established itself in France. Louis XIV, styled the Grand Monarque, reigned for the unparalleled length of seventy-two years (1643-1715), and set a pattern for all the kings of Europe. At first he was guided by his Machiavellian minister, Cardinal Mazarin; after the death of the Cardinal he himself in his own proper person became the ideal “Prince.” He was, within his limitations, an exceptionally capable king; his ambition was stronger than his baser passions, and he guided his country towards bankruptcy through the complication of a spirited foreign policy, with an elaborate dignity that still extorts our admiration. - M. Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was an old journalist politician, a great denouncer of abuses, a great upsetter of governments, a doctor who had, while a municipal councillor, kept a free clinic, and a fierce, experienced duellist. None of his duels ended fatally, but he faced them with great intrepidity. He had passed from the medical school to republican journalism in the days of the Empire. In those days he was an extremist of the left. - Map of Europe, 1848-1871
Map of Europe, 1848-1871 - Martin Luther
Very few religious-spirited men had the daring to break away or the effrontery to confess that they had broken away from all authoritative teaching, and that they were now relying entirely upon their own minds and consciences. That required a very high intellectual courage. The general drift of the common man in this period in Europe was to set up his new acquisition, the Bible, as a counter authority to the church. This was particularly the case with the great leader of German Protestantism, Martin Luther (1483-1546). - Mexico and Peru
Mexico and Peru - Mr. Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone (1809 - 1898) Mr. Gladstone was one of the most central and representative politician statesmen of the later nineteenth century, and it will be worth while to devote a paragraph or so to his ideas and intellectual limitations. They will help us to understand better the astonishing irrelevance of the political life of this period to the realities that rose about it. He was a person of exceptional intellectual vigour; he had flashes of real insight; but his circumstances and temperament conspired against his ever attaining any real vision of the world in which he lived. He was the son of Sir John Gladstone, a West Indian slave-holder, the mortality among whose slaves was a matter of debate in the House of Commons; he was educated at Eton College, and at Christ Church, Oxford, and his mind never recovered from the process - Mr. Lloyd George
When in December, 1919, Mr. Lloyd George introduced his Home Rule Bill into the Imperial Parliament there were no Irish members, except Sir Edward Carson and his followers, to receive it. The rest of Ireland was away. It refused to begin again that old dreary round of hope and disappointment. Let the British and their pet Ulstermen do as they would, said the Irish.... - Napoleon as Emperor
He was scheming to make himself a real emperor, with a crown upon his head and all his rivals and school-fellows and friends at his feet. This could give him no fresh power that he did not already exercise, but it would be more splendid—it would astonish his mother. What response was there in a head of that sort for the splendid creative challenge of the time? But first France must be prosperous. France hungry would certainly not endure an emperor. - Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign
Says Holland Rose, quoting Thiers, this Egyptian expedition was “the rashest attempt history records.” Napoleon was left in Egypt with the Turks gathering against him and his army infected with the plague. Nevertheless, with a stupid sort of persistence, he went on for a time with this Eastern scheme. He gained a victory at Jaffa, and, being short of provisions, massacred all his prisoners. Then he tried to take Acre, where his own siege artillery, just captured at sea by the English, was used against him. Returning baffled to Egypt, he gained a brilliant victory over a Turkish force at Aboukir, and then, deserting the army of Egypt—it held on until 1801, when it capitulated to a British force—made his escape back to France (1799), narrowly missing capture by a British cruiser off Sicily. - Napoleon’s Empire, 1810
Napoleon’s Empire, 1810 - North Eastern Frontier of France, 1792
North Eastern Frontier of France, 1792 - Ottoman Empire before 1453
Ottoman Empire before 1453 - Ottoman Empire, 1566
Ottoman Empire, 1566 - Overseas Empires of European Powers, 1914
Overseas Empires of European Powers, 1914 - President Wilson
Slow and belated judgments are sometimes the best judgments. In a series of “notes,” too long and various for detailed treatment in this Outline, thinking aloud, as it were, in the hearing of all mankind, President Wilson sought to state the essential differences of the American State from the Great Powers of the Old World. - Switzerland
Switzerland - The Balkan States, 1913
The Balkan States, 1913 - The Balkans, 1878
The Balkans, 1878 - The Beginnings of Moslem Power
And the military campaigns that now began were among the most brilliant in the world’s history. Arabia had suddenly become a garden of fine men. The name of Khalid stands out as the brightest star in a constellation of able and devoted Moslem generals. Whenever he commanded he was victorious, and when the jealousy of the second Caliph, Omar, degraded him unjustly and inexcusably, he made no ado, but served Allah cheerfully and well as a subordinate to those over whom he had ruled. - The Break-up of Austria-Hungary
The Break-up of Austria-Hungary - The British Empire in 1815
The British Empire in 1815 consisted of the thinly populated coastal river and lake regions of Canada, and a great hinterland of wilderness in which the only settlements as yet were the fur-trading stations of the Hudson Bay Company, about a third of the Indian peninsula, under the rule of the East India Company, the coast districts of the Cape of Good Hope inhabited by blacks and rebellious-spirited Dutch settlers; a few trading stations on the coast of West Africa, the rock of Gibraltar, the island of Malta, Jamaica, a few minor slave-labour possessions in the West Indies, British Guiana in South America, and, on the other side of the world, two dumps for convicts at Botany Bay in Australia and in Tasmania.