The English Protectorate

Civil wars have a funny way of producing victors who do not resemble the original combatants. If you are an American, the US Civil War provides an excellent example.

Many people mistakenly think that "the North" won that war. The truth is, however, that the Union won that war and it was an entity which did not really exist prior to the conflict. The beliefs an goals of the victors, in 1865, were not the same as those of the men who began fighting for the North in 1861. A new nation, with a new interpretation of its founding documents, had been born from the strife and the destruction of war.

A similar transformation happened due to the English Civil War. When the victors, through their legislative tool known as the Rump Parliament, could not govern England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, power was put into the hands of a Lord Protector.

This result only came about because Oliver Cromwell marched into the ineffective assembly of the Rump Parliament in 1653 and dissolved it. Afterward, he ordered the Congregationalist churches to send representatives to form a new governing body that became known as the Assembly of Saints. When this body also failed to manage the affairs of government for the sprawling Commonwealth. it too was dissolved. In December of 1653, a new constitution was proposed as was the radical idea of making Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector for life. As he was head of the most powerful military body in the land, this nomination was easy for him to confirm.

The Protectorate Under Oliver Cromwell

The form of government varied in appearance during the reign of Oliver Cromwell. However, the fact of his rule never really changed. There were parliaments called and bodies of major generals consulted but Cromwell always had his way. He dissolved the parliaments and ignored the generals when it suited him.

Nevertheless, Cromwell maintained order and defended the nation's borders during his rule. In fact, he even added to the nation's colonies with an invasion of Jamaica, which was a Spanish colony at the time.

The English elite were so impressed with Cromwell that they offered him the crown in 1657. Now things had come full circle in deed as well as in appearance. Cromwell, who had fought against the idea of monarchy, actually refused the offer. He stated that he "would not build Jericho again." However, his rule was stronger than that of almost any king in the world at that time.

Notwithstanding this protest, Cromwell was reinstated as Lord Protector in a regal ceremony. He was not granted the right of primogeniture but was offered the option of naming his successor. He died the following year.

The Protectorate Under Richard Cromwell

After Oliver Cromwell's death, primogeniture or not, his third son succeeded him as Lord Protector. The brief reign of Richard Cromwell exposed the weaknesses in the Protectorate, which had relied primarily on the strength of the army, rather than the consent of the governed,  to maintain itself.

Richard tried to expand the power base to the people of the Protectorate and summoned a parliament to do that in 1659. He was immediately disappointed when Republican members derided the Protectorate as tyrannical and responsible for the economic depression in the country. In the Spring of that year, ignoring Richard without actually deposing him, the assembly created a new governing body which would eventually invite Charles II to return and rule over the Commonwealth in 1660.

Richard Cromwell himself never faced any punishment. He was simply forgotten as the nation moved forward under a new monarchy. He died at the age of 85 in Hertfordshire, England.

The Russo-Japanese War

Since the time of Marco Polo, Japan had been known to Westerners, if only in a half-legendary sense. Yet, as the centuries passed, Japan was not at all open to foreign intrusions. The people of that island nation carefully guarded their own isolation, forbidding even to open their ports to outsiders such as the Americans.

Japan Enters the Modern World

In 1853, Commodore Perry forced the opening of the ports to US trade with his gunboats. The Japanese suddenly realized that their self-imposed isolation had left them militarily weak in a world advancing rapidly since the industrial revolution.

Thus began a period of shocking acceleration in technology. By the end of the century, the Japanese were already confronting China militarily. They had also learned that the region known as Manchuria had long been contested for between the Chinese and the Russians. In 1903, they were further intrigued and alarmed by Russian moves to complete a railway reaching all the way to Port Arthur and allowing these foreigners to dominate land and sea approaches.

At first, Japan responded diplomatically, negotiating for territory and influence in Korea and the surrounding region. Russia also responded but over the months it became clear that they were playing for time and had no intention of truly negotiating. Japan decided to strike before Russian power in the area became too great.

Japan Strikes Without Warning

The war began on 8 February 1904. The Japanese Navy surprised the Russians, though, by attacking three hours before the actual declaration of hostilities. The Russians had assumed that the Japanese would not dare to fight them under any conditions. As the short but brutal war unfolded over the course of the next year, they learned different.

Both Russian and Japanese forces committed egregious atrocities against the civilians of Manchuria. However, the locals ultimately considered the Russians to be far worse and tended to support the Japanese.

In April of 1904, the Japanese and the Russians engaged in the first clash of modern battleships. The battle was technically a draw but Russian ships were forced to fall back into Port Arthur and await reinforcements coming from the Baltic. The English refused this fleet passage through the Suez Canal and forced it to go around Africa, taking months longer to arrive. Port Arthur fell to the Japanese forces later that year.

In 1905, the Japanese army went head to head with Imperial Russian forces on the ground in Manchuria. Combined victories for the Japanese continued through the spring. By summer, the Emperor of Russia was willing to sue for peace. In September 1905, Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the diplomatic negotiations. The Treaty of Portsmouth gave territory to Japan and recognized its influence in Korea. By 1910, Japan would annex this peninsula without any protest on the world stage.

Perhaps as many as 200,000 Japanese, Russians and Chinese died during this swift, deadly conflict.

The Decline of the Ottoman Empire

For a long time the Ottoman Empire was known as the Sick Man of Europe. This appellation is surprising, given that this behemoth had once ruled over a larger region of the Earth than any single nation had ruled in a long time. The British Empire, at this time, would grow and eclipse the Ottoman but in a much different and more commercial way. The Ottoman Empire was a direct descendant of a conquering band of Islamic fighters who had ruled militarily over their subject peoples just like many other medieval and feudal warriors in Europe centuries before.

The decline had perhaps begun as far back as 1683, when the centuries-long Ottoman advance into Europe was finally stopped at the gates of Vienna. At that time, the Ottomans had ruled over most of Southeastern Europe, all of Anatolia, pieces of modern-day Russia, Palestine, Syria, the Arabian Peninsula and a wide strip of North Africa that included Egypt, Cyrenaica and Tunis. Observers recognized a decline in the following century but the Empire remained an incredibly powerful force that no single European nation dared to defy.

However, as the long nineteenth century elapsed, the decline of vigor in the Empire became much more noticeable. This decline was obvious in military spheres as the Empire failed to overcome revolutionary challenges in its bordering regions, such as in Southeastern Europe and in North Africa. It was also an economic decline as well as a simple decline in morals and will among the rulers of the Empire.

As the Empire fell apart, the increasingly powerful nations of Western Europe and the Russian empire all became mutually concerned about the coming break up. Obviously, each of these nations was self-interested in terms of territorial or commercial expansion. However, there was also concern about maintaining order. No one wanted to see the Empire suddenly go under and leave behind a chaotic mess of ethnic minorities trying to establish conflicting territories and domains.

The resulting decline, thus, was not one of outright rebellion and sudden overturning of centuries-old styles of government and lifestyles. Instead, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire occurred slowly, with many nations breaking away in steps. The first step was sometimes a separation through the establishment of local rule followed by a declaration of independence that was virtually a fait accompli, as happened in Egypt. A succession of treaties and revolutions led to the ultimate destruction of the Empire after WWI and the establishment of the modern nation of Turkey in 1923.

Causes Behind the Decline

All empires decline eventually. There are many reasons behind the typical imperial decline. By nature, these entities are composed of disparate groups of people and this diversity naturally brings about certain frictions which wear down the military bonds that initially united them. Furthermore, many empires experience a certain moral rot among its leadership which leads to a carelessness in rulers.

The decline of the Ottoman Empire was characterized by these issues but also experienced struggles unique to its framework as a nominally Muslim composite of nations. Among the unique issues impacting the Ottoman Empire was the slow decrease in tax revenue. As in most nations dominated by Muslims during this period, there was a special tax levied on non-Muslims in the Ottoman lands. After the initial conquests, contrary to popular belief, most people remaining in the Empire were Christians or members of other religions. They supplied the Muslim conquerors with significant revenue every year.

Over time, however, conversions to Islam increased. By 1900, the percentage of Christians in the country had dropped to nearly 20%.The majority of citizens were paying significantly less in taxes due to their membership in the Islamic religion. As conquests of new land petered out and the size of the Empire stabilized, it had few new resources to support the administration and the army. In fact, its revenue was constantly shrinking. By the 19^th century, this dearth had created a desperate financial situation not only for the Ottomans but for many Muslim-dominated nations.

The army of the Ottomans had also suffered significant depredations for similar reasons. The vanguard of the army had always been the Janissaries. Companies of these elite shock troops were always formed with Christian children who were taken from their homes at young ages and raised in camps. Two things began to diminish the strength of this force: fewer homes from which to find potential soldiers and less military activity as the Empire stabilized its size among other nations. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire had grown aggressively, each generation of soldiers invigorated by combat. As these prospects became scarcer, soldiers lost opportunities to hone their skills. The Empire was losing its strength.

Imperial Losses Prior to the Long Nineteenth Century

There had been territorial losses in Europe during the 17^th century. However, these had often been offset by gains in Russia, Africa and Asia. Beginning in the 18^th century, though, the Empire began to lose comparatively small pieces of property along the Black Sea and in Central Asia.

The French Conquest of Egypt

During the French Revolution, an expedition led by Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798. This conquest was short-lived but it had a serious impact on the population, which was restive thereafter.  A civil war erupted between various s ethnic and national groups in Egypt in 1801. In 1805, an Ottoman military officer named Muhammad Ali took over the country. Egypt remained nominally Ottoman but was actually a separately managed territory under Ali for decades.

Autonomy for Serbia

For centuries, the Serbs had agitated for separation from the Empire in one way or another.  In 1812, they achieved autonomy under a truce but were re-annexed to the Empire the following year. A subsequent uprising gained a form of autonomy in which the Sultanate of Constantinople granted Serbia its own parliament, constitution and monarchy. As the Empire continued to crumble, this autonomy became real independence before the end of the 19^th century.

Greek Independence

By 1830, the Empire was also forced to recognize, through international treaties, the independence of a Greek state. At the time, this Greek kingdom occupied only a fraction of modern Greek territory, mostly the Peloponnesus and some portion of the peninsula just to the North, including ancient Attica and Euboea. It became an outpost of independence completely encircled by Ottoman possessions in the Levant and the Balkans.

The Crimean War

This virtual stalemate between Russia and the European powers allied with the Empire technically restored some territory to the Ottomans. However, in practice, these territories became independent and reinforced the unspoken acceptance that the Empire was ready to be partitioned. Territories freed by these struggles eventually united to become an independent territory that would grow into the modern-day nation of Romania.

Bulgaria

With Romania free and Serbia inching its way toward complete independence, territories just south of them began to move toward autonomy. The Principality of Bulgaria was finally recognized as a vassal state under the Ottomans by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.

The late 19^thcentury in Eastern Europe was characterized by more struggles against the Ottomans and among the nations who had so recently won their independence. The Balkan Wars of 1912 to 1913 resulted in the loss of almost all of the Ottoman Empire’s European territories, some of which it had held for several centuries. 

The significance of this decline should not be overlooked. It was conflict between these newborn nations which set off the First World War that would end the prior World Order and lay the groundwork for the politics of the 20^th century. With the Ottoman decline and eventual extinction in the 1920s, the last remnants of the medieval world, besides a handful of token royals in some European countries, were thrown into the dustbin and modernism was finally unleashed.