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

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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

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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.