An Essay in Universal History
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AN ESSAY IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY From an Orthodox Christian Point of View VOLUME IV: THE AGE OF EMPIRE (1861-1914) PART 1: from 1861 to 1894 Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2017. All Rights Reserved. 1 When I consent to be a Republican, I do evil, knowing that's what I do... I say Long live Revolution! As I would say Long live Destruction! Long live Expiation! Long live Punishment! Long live Death! Charles Baudelaire (1866). European politics in the nineteenth century fed on the French Revolution. No idea, no dream, no fear, no conflict appeared which had not been worked through in that fateful decade: democracy and socialism, reaction, dictatorship, nationalism, imperialism, pacifism. Golo Mann, The History of Germany since 1789 (1996). The Jewish people has rejected Christ, the true Mediator and Messiah, and therefore has excluded itself from history. Instead the Germans have become God's chosen people. Constantin Frantz (1870s). [The Jews] are at the root of the revolutionary socialist movement and of regicide, they own the periodical press, they have in their hands the financial markets; the people as a whole fall into financial slavery to them; they even control the principles of contemporary science and strive to place it outside of Christianity. Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev to Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1879). This is the final struggle. Let us come together and tomorrow the International will be the human race. There are no supreme redeemers, no god, no Caesar, no tribune. Workers, let us make our own salvation. Eugène Pottier, L'Internationale. It is neither blindness nor ignorance that ruins nations and states. Not for long do they ignore where they are heading. But deep inside them is a force at work, favoured by nature and reinforced through habit, that drives them forward irresistibly as long as there is still any energy in them. Divine is he who controls himself. Most humans recognize their ruin, but they carry on regardless... Leopold von Ranke. The Lord and Master of the money markets of the world, and of course virtually Lord and Master of everything else. He literally held the revenues of Southern Italy in pawn, and Monarchs and Ministers of all countries courted his advice and were guided by his suggestions. Benjamin Disraeli, Former British Prime Minister, on Nathan Mayer Rothschild. When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible. Jomo Kenyatta. The pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ Himself, hidden under the veil of the flesh. The future Pope Pius X (1895). 2 INTRODUCTION 5 I. THE WEST: THE MASTER RACES (1861-1894) 6 1. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 7 2. BISMARCK AND THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 19 3. THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE 23 4. THE PARIS COMMUNE 28 5. THE SECOND REICH 35 6. THE RISORGIMENTO AND THE FALL OF THE PAPAL STATE 44 7. RELIGION IN AMERICA 53 8. WAGNER: (1) THE POLITICS OF CONSERVATISM 59 9. WAGNER: (2) THE RELIGION OF DEATH 70 10. NIETZSCHE AND THE NEW GERMANY 82 11. A JEWISH WORLD GOVERNMENT? 95 12. MOSES HESS AND THE PROTO-ZIONISTS 101 13. THE WESTERNIZATION OF JAPAN 113 14. CHRISTIANITY, COMMERCE AND CIVILIZATION 118 15. WELFARISM, SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 127 II. THE EAST: THE GOD-CHOSEN RACE (1861-1894) 141 16. “THE NEW MAN" 142 17. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS 146 18. THE REVOLUTIONARIES 156 19. DOSTOYEVSKY ON PAPISM AND SOCIALISM 165 20. PORTENTS OF THE ANTICHRIST 169 21. THE JEWS UNDER ALEXANDER II 175 22. THE EASTERN QUESTION, PAN-HELLENISM AND PAN-SLAVISM 183 23. THE GRECO-BULGARIAN SCHISM 194 24. AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE 202 3 25. L'ALLIANCE ISRAELITE UNIVERSELLE 211 26. DOSTOYEVSKY ON RUSSIA 216 27. DOSTOYEVSKY, KATKOV AND LEONTIEV 224 28. THE TSAR AND THE CONSTITUTION 233 29. THE JEWS UNDER ALEXANDER III 239 30. RUSSIA AND THE BALKANS 246 31. VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV AND THE TEMPTATION OF CATHOLICISM 251 32. POBEDONOSTSEV ON CHURCH AND STATE 261 33. POBEDONOSTSEV ON DEMOCRACY 268 34. THE REIGN OF TSAR ALEXANDER III 272 35. TOLSTOY AND THE VOLGA FAMINE 277 4 INTRODUCTION This is the fourth volume in my series An Essay in Universal History, following volume 1: The Age of Faith (to 1453), volume 2: The Age of Reason (1453-1789), and volume 3: The Age of Revolution (1789-1861). This fourth volume, subtitled “The Age of Empire”, takes the story from the emergence of the world’s first modern empire in the American Civil War to the eve of the great cataclysm of imperialism – the First World War in 1914. It traces the great empires as they reached their zenith (in power, if not in extent). Empires have existed since ancient times, but the term “imperialism” came into vogue only in the 1860s. The word acquired an increasingly negative connotation as it was deemed to clash with the values of other modern belief-systems. In this volume, considerable attention is devoted to now the major new belief-systems of Socialism, Nationalism, Darwinism, Freemasonry, Freudianism and Nietzscheanism interacted with each other, with Imperialism, and with that unique kind of empire, the Orthodox Autocracy in its Russian incarnation. The major theme is the undermining of the old belief-system of the Orthodox Autocracy by the new ones coming from the West before the huge catastrophe of 1914. My debts are very many, and are detailed in the footnotes. Especially important to me have been the writings of the Russian Orthodox monarchists: St. Philaret of Moscow, St. Ignaty (Brianchaninov), St. Theophan the Recluse, the holy Elders of Optina, Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov, St. John of Kronstadt, St. John Maximovich, Archbishop Averky of Jordanville and Archpriest Lev Lebedev. Among western historians I have particularly benefited from the writings of A.N. Wilson, Philip Bobbitt, Bernard Simms, Paul Johnson, Niall Ferguson, Norman Davies, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Sir Geoffrey Hosking, Misha Glenny, Miranda Carter, Dominic Lieven, Christopher Clark, Henry Kissinger and Noel Malcolm. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us! Amen. February 17/ March 2, 2017. 5 I. THE WEST: THE MASTER RACES (1861-1894) 6 1. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR The Age of Empire was a racist age, when theories of a master-race - White or Aryan – were developed in order to justify European imperialism over the Asian and African races. However, it began with a war that was in part a war against racism, the American Civil War. This war was not unexpected. As early as 1787 Alexander Hamilton "had made a prediction: The newly created federal government would either 'triumph altogether over the state governments and reduce them to an entire subordination,' he surmised, or 'in the course of a few years the contests about the boundaries of power between the particular governments and the general government will produce a dissolution of the Union.'"1 "Each side," writes J.M. Roberts, "accused the other of revolutionary designs and behaviour. It is very difficult not to agree with both of them. The heart of the Northern position, as Lincoln saw, was that democracy should prevail, a claim assuredly of potentially limitless revolutionary implication. In the end, what the North achieved was indeed a social revolution in the South. On the other side, what the South was asserting in 1861 (and three more states joined the Confederacy after the first shots were fired) was that it had the same right to organize its life as had, say, revolutionary Poles or Italians in Europe."2 The war arose because of a quarrel over the status of the new western states: should they be allowed to have slaves or not. Ian Rimmer writes: “After the war with Mexico ended in 1848, the borders of the American Republic became finalized. Expansion into the new territories to the west began, but disputes about whether they should become free or slave were fierce, and at times violent. Various compromises and short-term fixes gave some stability but the ultimate problem was crystallised by a speech on 16 June 1858 in Springfield, Illinois. It was given by the newly formed Republican Party’s candidate for the Illinois senate seat. He argued: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect this house to fall. But I do expect it will ceased to be divided.’ The candidate’s name was Abraham Lincoln.”3 According to Rimmer, in 1862, Lincoln, now President, “seized the opportunity to confront the issue of slavery. At war’s onset he had maintained its purpose was to save the Union and pledged to leave the institution of slavery unaffected in the Southern States. Lincoln believed he wasn’t able to challenge state-sanctioned 1 Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers, New York: Vintage Books, 2002, p. 77. 2 Roberts, History of the World, Oxford: Helicon, 1992, p. 620. 3 Rimmer, “Lincoln’s Civil War”, All About History, p. 28. 7 servitude under the Constitution, which kept the important border slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware loyal to the Union. “However, as the war unfolded, slavery’s effects couldn’t be ignored, as they were damaging the Union campaign. Slaves were used to construct defences for the Confederate armies, while slave work on farms and plantations kept the South’s economy going, allowing more of the white population to fight.