The last minute in history: a note (from an old post)

[fpb]

It is a curious phenomenon how certain important historical developments have tended to take place at the very last minute in which they were possible. When the Colonies revolted against Britain, Britain’s power was growing, but still limited: the country had barely ten million inhabitants, as against three million Americans, and the effort of a long and major operation beyond the seas was simply beyond it. Twenty years later, Britain had more than fifteen million inhabitants, was able to fight major and very lengthy wars in Europe and India at the same time, settle Australia, and build up a naval presence in the Mediterranean so strong that Napoleon was never able to dislodge them from Sicily, Sardinia, Corfu or Malta. An American insurrection in 1800 would certainly have failed. By the same token, Italy won independence and unity in 1859-60 after decades of unrest and occasional insurrections and war, mainly through Garibaldi’s genius for insurgent warfare; but the 1860s were also the decade in which the new technology of repetition and machine guns and heavier artillery became widespread. From 1789 to 1848, rulers and governments had had no answer to revolted cities and insurgent warfare, but by 1871 they definitely did, and the fate of the Commune of Paris served notice on the world that barricades and revolts in capital cities would no longer be an effective way to regime change. If Italy had not been united in 1860, it never would have been. More such examples could be made.

Comments

[spaceanjl.livejournal.com]

...? Wouldn't it be more true to say that certain important historical developments are brought into being by the confluence of such factors as technological progress, population increase and social politics? No event happens in isolation.

For example, technological progress leading to increased urbanisation and population increase put pressure upon resources, forcing an outward expansion and political friction.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Except it didn't. Outward expansion of the serious kind, leading to mass settlement and Europeanization, was almost over by the time the Industrial Revolution got into gear. Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands had not only conquered all their historical empires, they were in decided decline. The Europeanized colonies of Spanish and Poruguese America had gained their independence, and soon, in an odd way, the Dutch settlers of the Cape were to do so as well. Russia had already reached the Pacific and Alaska, and even Britain had transformed North America and set out in earnest on the settlement of Australia and the conquest of India. The colonies conquered during and after the Indistral Revolution were mostly in Africa and were mostly not settled at all. What is more, the main colonizing impulse, with the exception of the Netherlands, came from external countries on the European continent - Russia, Portugal, England, even Spain - that were among the least advanced and urbanized in Europe, certainly less than Italy, France and the Rhine Valley countries. The exception is the Netherlands, but that was also one of the least successful among the colonial powers - its only permanent settlement was in South Africa, and that was wholly unplanned.

Besides, if you want to challenge something I said you ought to focus on what I said. Am I wrong in saying that the kind of urban revolt that made the revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 had become wholly impossible by 1879? Amd I wrong in saying that the Britain of 1800 was much stronger than that of 1775, and could have crushed an American revolt as easily as she in fact conquered most of India? That is what you ought to show is incorrect.

[spaceanjl.livejournal.com]

It was less of a challenge, and more of a desire to discuss with another history buff. :) I actually have a (Medieval) History degree, but I'm admittedly rusty at academic debate, sorry.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Please, there is NOTHING to be sorry about. Answers as to method are part of academic debate, and I did not mean to knock you down in any way. In fact I am glad I got a response which, though in my view not wholly correct, was neither foolish nor off the point. And the Dark and Middle Ages are one of my specialisms.