CHAPTER III
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE “ENEMY OF PEACE”
ERA OF LOUIS XIV
England now turned her attention to the third European Power, whose expansion and prosperity caused ever-growing anxiety to the Chosen People: namely France. Under her Kings the latter country had developed into a homogeneous, centralised state. By means of a clever and unscrupulous foreign policy, in conjunction with the energy of an essentially progressive population, France had been able to profit immensely by the weakness and lack of unity of the German Empire. The German wars of religion, and especially the Thirty Years’ War, afforded France the most magnificent opportunities for expansion. By far the strongest European Power, France was also a maritime and colonial Power of the first rank. The great statesman Colbert succeeded, by his wise and far-sighted administration, in raising trade and industry to an unprecedented height of prosperity. A bold and skilful colonial policy was pursued in India, North and South America. In Canada and in the southern States of the Union, the travels of intrepid French explorers had opened up for their country immense regions, the possession of which made France the foremost nation in America, even as she was the foremost in the East Indies. Recognised as the leading European Power, France was in a fair way to becoming the leading World-Power. Her strength, and consequently the validity of her claims, resided in the fact of her possessing this pre-eminent continental situation, as also in the facts of her political homogeneity and of the wonderful productivity of her inhabitants. During the second half of the seventeenth century, the people of England became aware of the existence of a dangerous rival; and an English historian tells us that the learned men at his side of the Channel at once enunciated the theory of Louis XIV being the enemy of European peace and consequently of England. For the moment, however, political circumstances in England did not permit of the latter carrying out her designs. She needed the “enemy of peace” to help her first of all in her war of robbery and destruction against Holland. Louis XIV, allied with England, waged war against the Dutch on land and sea. His chief desire was to destroy the Dutch trade; but when peace had been concluded between Holland and England, and Louis XIV found himself alone at war with the Dutch, the whole of the carrying trade, which the French had succeeded in wresting from the former, passed necessarily into the hands of neutral England. The war brought no advantage to French trade, and Louis recognised too late that he had labored solely for England. Not only had this labor been in vain, as far as France was concerned; but the maritime trade of the latter country was, as a consequence of the war, taken over to a large extent by Albion’s merchants.
Nature had destined France to be a maritime and commercial Power of the highest rank. She has three magnificent coasts. Her geographical position seemed to make her the heir of Spain—and not only the heir, but also the conqueror, in which case she must have extended her dominions as far as the Pillars of Hercules. It was inevitable that France should, in the North, turn her eyes towards the Spanish Netherlands (i. e. Belgium), and, further still, towards Holland. In this way, the two countries at the expense of which England had risen to power, appeared destined to become simple dependencies of France. The War of the Spanish Succession arose about the question of the future relations between Paris and Madrid. Louis XIV claimed the Spanish throne for his grandson, after the death of its actual occupant. Had this claim been successful, France would not only have seen her continental power immensely increased by the possession of the entire sea-coast from Dunkerque to Gibraltar, and from Gibraltar to Toulon—but all the Spanish colonies would have been henceforth incorporated in the already large French colonial empire. Last, but not least, France would have taken over the whole of the trade with these new colonies. The last-mentioned point was precisely the most important of all. At that time, every colonial Power claimed for itself the right of a monopoly of trade with its colonies. Spain and Portugal still possessed, despite all that had been stolen from them by England, large and wealthy colonies. Had these been annexed to the French colonial empire, an essentially French character would have been given to the whole of the oversea colonial world.
The English art of inducing Continental nations to fight Albion’s battles manifested itself in its perfection during the Anglo-French wars at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Netherlands, Prussia, and especially Austria, were stirred up against France, and nothing was left undone in order to involve the latter in ever fresh wars. England’s statesmen knew perfectly well, already at that epoch, that such wars weaken all the Continental Powers, that they increase their national debt, paralyse their trade and industry, and render them impotent on the seas. A few years ago an English Imperialist, Sir Harold Wyatt, wrote that naval wars are always a time of harvest for England. The latter had already learnt this lesson from her Dutch war. Admiral Freemantle and other English historians speak with pride of the era when the English fleet began to undertake the duties of “policeman of the seas,” and to impose the pax britannica on all by force. The right of policing the seas has since been considered a Divine right of the Chosen People. This right consists in stealing as many trading vessels, whether neutral or not, as possible, under some pious and lying pretext.
Especially did the English need Austria, the old adversary of France—Austria, who had been ousted by France from her position as foremost European Power. In the seventeenth century Austria had a particularly heavy burden to bear: the wars with the Turks. These wars were very welcome to England, as long as they seemed to endanger Austria’s existence. In the same way as England manifested a deeply sympathetic interest in the welfare of Christianity and human progress, so did she consider the advance of the Turks through the Balkan Peninsula and the plains of Hungary with the unruffled calm of the businessman, who knows in advance the profit he will reap. The late Alexander von Peez, one of those who knew best the motives underlying English mercantile policy, wrote: “The Duke of Argyle tells us that in 1683, when the Turks attempted to take Vienna by storm, the sympathy of the Whigs was with the Turks. The trading classes, whose political representatives the Whigs were, wished and hoped to see Vienna captured by the Mussulmans.” The reasons for such a pious hope were evident: a victory of the Turks would have produced incalculable effects in the whole of South-Eastern Europe. The triumph of the Crescent would have spelt the destruction, or at any rate the prolonged paralysis, of industry and commerce in all the Austrian lands. In itself this implied an immense advantage for the English business world; for the latter would then have been, in all those regions occupied by the Turks, without any competition, and it could consequently have fixed the prices to suit its convenience. The German wars of religion, and the persecution of the French Protestants, had taught the English that, under circumstances such as would necessarily have prevailed in the countries conquered by the Turks, the capitalists tend to emigrate and to seek refuge in England; whereby the capital invested in the latter naturally increases.
The Austrians were disobliging enough to offer a successful resistance. English diplomacy then set itself to induce the Emperor Leopold to stem himself the tide of his troops’ victory, and to send his triumphant armies away to the west of Europe. An English journal of that period expressed itself, according to Peez, as follows: “Emperor Leopold, having placed the general interest of Europe (England?) above his own, has withdrawn a large part of his troops from Hungary and the Lower Danube, and transferred them to the Rhine; as a result, Belgrade and Nish have been re-taken by the Turks.” When we consider these matters with calm impartiality, we are always tempted to ask ourselves: which was the most remarkable, the cleverness of England or the stupidity of the others? We believe the last of these two factors to have been the most important, and Austrians will probably share this opinion to-day. England did not desire to see Austria-Hungary develop into a Balkan Power; the former has always regarded every expansion of other nations—especially when seacoasts, harbors, navigable streams, come into play—as an insult to the Chosen People and a menace to European peace. Thus did Austria voluntarily sacrifice the fruits of her victory, in order to place herself in England’s service against France. Germany furnished, according to an ancient and hallowed custom, the battlefields. The only Power which reaped any profits was, of course, England. Had it not been for the Franco-Austrian quarrels, William of Orange would never have ascended the English throne. Very rightly has Peez said: “England’s freedom was saved by long wars on the Rhine, by the devastation of the Palatinate, by the sacrificing of the fruits of Austrian victories in the South-East.”
For our own part we always bear in mind the imprudent words of Disraeli: “England’s influence has never been stronger than when her motives have not been suspected.” Whenever her interests—or, as we should prefer to say, her greed—demanded that a Continental State should be destroyed or weakened, the London Cabinet always knew how to create complications for that State, and it then came to the support of the latter’s enemies by one means or another. The countries to whose help she came were, of course, very grateful, and England’s virtues were celebrated with enthusiasm. She was reputed a free country, which espoused, solely for moral reasons, the cause of religious liberty against tyranny and intolerance. Only much later did the Continental nations begin to see that the whole thing was purely and simply a matter of business, and extremely lucrative business, for Albion. And some nations have not understood it even now!
The War of the Spanish Succession likewise brought in a rich harvest for England. When the Peace of Utrecht was concluded in 1713, England was the only maritime Power in the world. The late well-known American historian, Admiral Mahan, describes England’s position at that period as follows: “England ... meanwhile was building up a navy, strengthening, extending and protecting her commerce, seizing maritime positions,—in a word, founding and rearing her sea power upon the ruins of that of her rivals, friend and foe alike.” That this should have been the case, as it incontestably was, will perhaps not surprise our readers. Mahan’s judgment is all the more interesting, as its author is an enthusiastic admirer of Great Britain and all her deeds. In fact, according to him, an unassailable British world-empire is something so supremely magnificent, that all means are justified in order to create it.
It was in the first years of the War of the Spanish Succession that England stole Gibraltar—an event of far-reaching importance. This event did not mean a return to the Continental policy of the Plantagenets, but merely proved that England had risen to the rank of the first maritime Power—it embodied in a concrete manner England’s claim to rule the seas. Henceforth her aim was to secure as many naval stations as possible; and this aim could not be realised otherwise than at the expense of the Continental nations. The latter, as far as they possessed coasts, were in future to be perpetually menaced by the guns of the English fleet. France had coveted Spain; but it was England who stole Gibraltar, which commands the entry into the Mediterranean. This act of robbery was the second of the decisive steps taken with a view to ensuring England’s supremacy in the last-named sea.
Another important event which took place during that period was a treaty of commerce, which England concluded with Portugal—the so-called Methuen Treaty. England had wisely allied herself with weak Portugal; for the latter was a large, albeit defenceless, colonial Power. The Methuen Treaty was characteristic of English methods: on the one hand England conceded to Portugal a reduction of the English duties on Portuguese wines, etc.; on the other hand, she obtained for English goods the right of free entry into Portugal. An English historian has remarked concerning this treaty: “Our alliance with Portugal and the Methuen Treaty between them gave England the monopoly of Portuguese trade.” The final result was that Portugal’s industry was annihilated by English competition; Portugal was compelled to purchase everything for itself and its colonies from English producers! The exported products were shipped on English vessels, and thus did it come about that the entire carrying trade to and from the Portuguese colonies fell into English hands. It is a historical fact that the Methuen Treaty completed the irreparable ruin of Portugal. Concluded in 1703, it has obliged Portugal to remain England’s obedient vassal down to the present day.
England’s statesmen have therefore every reason to speak in the most caressing and loving way of their dear friend and ally Portugal!
It is not less interesting to consider the Assiento Treaty between Spain and England which was incorporated in the Treaty of Utrecht. The Assiento Agreement enabled England to import every year a certain number of negroes into the Spanish colonies; it gave her the further right of sending every year a trading ship to Portobello. In this way did England open for herself a market in the Spanish possessions, thanks to which the products of English industry could be despatched thither in ever increasing quantities. The Assiento Treaty shattered the Spanish colonial trade monopoly as effectively as the Methuen Treaty shattered that of the Portuguese. The great plan of Louis XIV had been to unite France, Spain, and Portugal in one vast Continental and Colonial Empire. The two treaties above mentioned show us clearly how this plan had collapsed, and how immense was England’s profit—especially by comparison with England’s sacrifices. The English losses in the naval war had been very small, and those on land had been smaller still; for the so-called “English” armies on the Continent, commanded by Marlborough, were not English at all, but German. England had sacrificed nothing but money, just as every business firm must advance the costs of foundation of a new enterprise. But such a firm knows beforehand that it will recoup those costs; so did England. She recouped them along with colossal interest, although her risks had been insignificant, seeing that the enemy could not possibly do her any great harm. The belligerents on the Continent, however, fought so desperately and so long for England’s business interests, that over and above the profits already indicated, England was able to evict France from her settlements in India, Canada, and the United States.
It was the same old story: the Continental nations obtained for England, at the cost of their own blood and riches, the control of the seas and the predominant position as colonial Power. The English statesmen understood this perfectly well. We are told that William Pitt the Elder once said that he would conquer America on the battlefields of Germany.