Context
After the defeat
of Napoleon in 1815, Europe entered a period of relatively
stable peace. Initiated at the Congress of Vienna, the conservative
powers led by Metternich in Austria developed a European geopolitical
system based on the maintenance of the status quo and designed
to avoid war through a balance of powers that eliminated the threat
of any one nation gaining extreme strength by ensuring the relative
strength of that nation's adversaries. The balance of power held
through 1870, with brief periods of revolt in 1830 and 1848 that
sprang from class differences exacerbated and made obvious by the
industrial revolution. The revolts of 1830 and 1848 were also
generated by the clash of ideologies present through the mid-nineteenth
century. While 1815-1848 is often (and not incorrectly) characterized
as teetering between conservatism and liberalism, it also saw
the rise and maturation of radicalism, romanticism, nationalism,
and socialism. Though the 1830 and 1848 revolts were quickly suppressed
by the conservative powers, they did demonstrate a general trend
toward an increasingly active working class desirous of economic
and political power. In 1870 and 1871 Italy and Germany became
unified nations, with Germany in particular emerging as an immediate
international force.
The years between 1871 and 1914 brought liberal progress
in England, social welfare in Germany, imperial expansion throughout
the world, the spread of European civilization, and economic strengthening
of England, Germany, the United States, and Japan. Newspaper editors
and cultural pundits referred to these years contemporaneously
as the "dawn of a new era" in scientific development, peace, economic
expansion, and cultural civilization. Without war or major conflict
in sight, Europe set out to perfect its home and spread its perfection
throughout the world. The order of the day was, quite simply, self-
improvement, national improvement, and attainable perfection; the
great successes of Europe during these years seemed to prove that
such was possible. Unfortunately, certain paternalistic policies
developed out of such a perspective. While we cannot apologize
for brutal treatment of Africans and Asians during the imperial
period, we can understand such practices as the manifestations
of a European polity that thought it was implementing the true
inheritance of its liberal heritage. Further, though no major war
seemed to threaten, the forty years after 1871 erupted in World War
I, a catastrophic war that tore through Europe with
a brutality unanticipated by any of its combatants. Any study
of the period between 1871 and 1914 must be made with an eye to
1914, and the massive, transformative war that year held.
