The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [101]
In May of 1794, the Revolution abolished the Christian Religion. Reason was to control the minds of men, but “reason” led to the Reign of Terror, the murder of the king and queen, and wars that were brutal beyond measure. The new killing fever was not because one god fought another, but because one man fought another over differing views on government. Gods could not stop men from killing, but now that man claimed to be free from gods, he managed to come up with other reasons to kill every bit as motivating as any god had been. Worse yet, as the government of France existed without the sanction of any god, and as it admitted to no god beyond reason, it was freed from all restrictions as long as “reason” justified the actions. Had the revolutionaries acknowledged the existence of God and the relevance of the Bible, Christian moral restrictions would apply; however, with Christian moral restraints removed and replaced by reason it was found that “reason” could justify any action including the Reign of Terror (remember the Sophist?). Reason, it seemed, recognized no absolutes.
France decided all things must be questioned by the light of reason. The French decided history itself must center on their Revolution; thus, they created a new calendar to reflect its central importance. The metric system of weights and measures was adopted, new fashions were invented, and the Napoleonic Code was published just to name a very few of the concepts arising from the French Revolution; on the other hand, for all their thoughts about being the center of the world and their Revolution the focus of history, not much changed. In the end, Napoleon destroyed himself in a series of military blunders rivaling Hitler’s some 124 years later. After a massive attack on Russia and the total loss of his frozen army, Napoleon was sent to the island of Elba and exile. His final gasp was his return from exile followed by France restoring him as emperor (how dumb can people get), the declaration of war on Napoleon by England, Prussia and nearly everyone else in Europe, and the final battle at Waterloo in 1815 where a combination of English and Prussian forces crushed the French. This time Napoleon ended up on a drab Pacific island where he died in 1821, probably from poison slipped into his food by a servant working on the island who hated him.
Figure 32 Napoleon’s Empire 1810
After Napoleon’s fall, the nations of Europe assembled in the Congress of Vienna which sorted out all the trouble caused by the French, re-established the “old regimes” in Europe, and set the foundations for modern Europe. This peace would hold from 1815 to 1914, ninety-nine years in all, and resulted in remarkable prosperity and success for Europe. The Congress of Vienna was historic, and even though small wars occurred during the ninety-nine years, the great powers remained generally at peace saving the world from untold suffering.
The Impact of Empires
1650 to 1950
Empires held by Western European nations had an unqualified impact on world history. The British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Belgium, and the Netherlands’s empires gobbled up much of the world’s surface outside of Europe and the United States, and these empires lasted a very long time.
From about 1650 to 1950 is a general period for the existence of European Empires; thus, Europe had control of most of the world for three hundred years. The growth of these empires was especially rapid. In 1815, about 35 percent of the earth’s habitable area was controlled by Europe, but by 1914, this percentage was at 85 percent. The only non-European nation establishing a modern empire was Japan whose empire was Asian.