In response to the post by January 26
Though his intentions may have been masked by the seemingly liberal emancipation of serfs, Alexander II did not emancipate the serfs in order to gain their support. This may very well have been an outcome, and if it was, it’s a double win. I thought that Cas’s argument that Alexander II liberated the serfs in order to exploit them further was very insightful. Although characteristically cynical of him, this remark stuck with me. Alexander II liberated the serfs so that he could use them industrially. He became aware that his nation suffered because it was so far behind the rest of Europe industrially. However, to build industry, he needed workers in the cities. Abolishing serfdom, and making it so that the serfs’ land was worthless drove the serfs into the cities where they became part of the industrial machine.
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Although characteristically cynical of him, this remark stuck with me.
ReplyDelete!! :)
If the Europeans had made the types of mistakes during World War I that they made during the Crimean War, such as the British “charge of the Light Brigade,” the war would have been immeasurably more catastrophic.
http://shinytomto.blogspot.com/2009/01/necessary-war.html
Sadly, this was in fact the case. For example, during the Somme offensive there were a million casualties—usually from charging lines into machine gun fire... What a waste of human life... There were plenty of charrges-just on foot. More mobile war could be found in the East. Hors fighting was used then.
Machiavelli’s role in the Florentine government; effectively ruling the state under their sovereign’s authority.
http://shinytomto.blogspot.com/2009/01/machiavelli-vs-bismarck.html
This is a good point. The one thing to be aware of—Machiavelli was not in a commensuratye role to Bismarck. He acted as a diplomat for the Florentine government, and a useful one at that, and pushed for the training of a city militia, which he also trained.
He rebuilt Paris, though for multiple reasons, improving water and sewer lines in an attempt to improve people’s living conditions. He didn’t necessarily have to spend time or money on these things, but did because it appeased those who would most likely rebel.
http://shinytomto.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-that-did-arise.html
One thing: Napoleon did not just do this because his people would benefit. He did this—widening streets, clearing slums, to get rid of choke points in the city, to ensure police and army units had quicker access to rioting trouble spots. The Champs Elysee is wide for a reason—and beautiful to walk down in the Fall... Also, those slums were filled with the poor—and they had to go somewhere—outside the city, into the environs around...
Louis Philippe did the opposite of this; rather than try to help the workers, he tried to shut them up by declaring their organizations and clubs illegal, thereby alienating the people and forcing them to rebel. FDR prevented the type of disorganized revolution that could have easily broken out in the United States as it did in France and then spread across the rest of Europe.
http://shinytomto.blogspot.com/2009/01/hungry-times.html
So, why not Britain—weren't there also aggravations there—especially with the Chartists? Why didn't full revolution take place on England?