Thursday, May 3, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
History of France
Historical overview
Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric France
The Neanderthals, the earliest Homo sapiens, began to occupy Europe from about 200,000 BC. but seem to have died out by about 30,000 years ago, presumably out-competed by the modern humans during a period of cold weather. The earliest modern humans — Homo sapiens sapiens — entered Europe (including France) around 50,000 years ago (the Upper Palaeolithic).
From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, Indo-European and Proto-Celtic peoples spread across Western Europe. During the final stages of the Iron Age the La Tène culture gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times.
Gaul
Main article: Gaul
Gaul covered large parts of modern day France, Belgium and Northwest Germany. Gaul was a land inhabited by many Celtic tribes Romans referred to as Gauls who spoke the Gaulish language. On the southwestern part of the Garonne the people spoke an archaic language related to Basque, the Aquitanian language. The Celts founded cities such as Lutetia Parisiorum and Burdigala while the Aquitanians founded Tolosa.
Long before any Roman settlements, Greek navigators settled in what would become Provence. The Phoceans founded important cities such as Massalia and Nicaea which brought them in to conflict with the neighboring Celts and Ligurians. The Celts themselves were often fighting against Aquitanians and Germans while a Gaulish war band led by Brennus invaded Rome circa 300BC following the Battle of the Allia.
When he fought the Romans Hannibal Barca recruited several Gaulish mercenaries against Rome, it was this Gaulish participation that caused Provence to be annexed by the Roman Republic. Then the Consul of Gaul -Julius Caesar- conquered all of Gaul.
Despite Gaulish opposition led by Vercingetorix, the Overking of the Warriors, Gauls succumbed to Roman onslaught, the Gauls had some success at first at Gergovia yet they would be ultimately defeated at Alesia. The Romans founded cities such as Lugdunum and Narbonensis.
Roman Gaul
Main article: Roman Gaul
Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar after Alesia. Painting by Lionel-Noël Royer, 1899.
Gaul was divided into several different provinces. The Romans displaced populations in order to prevent local identities to become a threat to the Roman integrity. Thus, many Celts were displaced in Aquitania or were enslaved and moved out of Gaul. There was a strong cultural evolution in Gaul under the Roman Empire, the most obvious one being the replacement of the Gaulish language by Vulgar Latin. It has been argued the similarities between the Gaulish and Latin languages favoured the transition. Gaul remained under Roman control for centuries.
Following Nero’s suicide the Roman Empire was hit by civil unrest. The man that took Rome and installed Vespasian as Emperor, namely Marcus Antonius Primus, was born in Palladia Tolosa and Gauls became better integrated with the Empire with the passage of time. In the decade following Valerian’s capture by the Persians there was a short lived Gallic Empire established by Postumus. This loose Empire included the Iberian Peninsula and Britannia in addition to Gaul itself. Germanic tribes entered Gaul at this time; they were the Franks and the Alamanni. Emperor Aurelian recaptured Gaul in 274 at Chalons thus ending the Gallic Empire.
Gaul soldiers.
A migration of Celts appeared in the 4th century in Armorica. They were led by the legendary king Conan Meriadoc and came from Britain. They spoke the now extinct British language which evolved into the Breton, Cornish and Welsh languages. In 418 the Aquitanian province was given to the Goths in exchange for their support against the Vandals. Those Goths had previously sacked Rome in 410 and established a capital in Toulouse. The Roman Empire had difficulty responding to all the barbarian raids, and Flavius Aëtius had to use these tribes against each other in order to maintain some Roman control. He first used Huns against Burgundians and these mercenaries destroyed Worms, killed king Gunther, and pushed the Burgundians westward. The Burgundians were resettled by Aëtius near Lugdunum in 443. The Huns, united by Attila became a greater threat, and Aëtius used the Visigoths against the Huns. The conflict climaxed in 451 at the Battle of Chalons, in which the Romans and Goths defeated Attila.
The Roman Empire was on the verge of collapsing. Aquitania was definitely abandoned to the Visigoths who would soon conquer a significant part of southern Gaul as well as most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Burgundians claimed their own kingdom, and northern Gaul was practically abandoned to the Franks.
Frankish kingdoms (486-987)
Main article: Frankish Empire
The Battle of Poitiers. This battle is often considered of macro-importance in European and islamic history.
In 486,Clovis I, leader of the Salian Franks, defeated Syagrius at Soissons and subsequently united most of northern and central Gaul under his rule. Clovis then recorded a succession of victories against other Germanic tribes such as the Alamanni at Tolbiac. In 496, he adopted the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. This gave him greater legitimacy and power over his Christian subjects and granted him clerical support against the Visigoths. He defeated Alaric II at Vouillé in 507 and annexed Aquitaine, and thus Toulouse, into his Frankish kingdom. The Goths retired to Toledo in what would become Spain. Clovis made Paris his capital but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land purely as a private possession and divided it among heirs, so four kingdoms emerged: Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and Rheims. The Merovingian dynasty eventually lost effective power to their successive mayors of the palace, the founders of what was to become the Carolingian dynasty. Muslims invaders had conquered Hispania and were threatening the Frankish kingdoms. Duke Odo the Great defeated a major invading force at Toulouse in 721 but failed to repel a raiding party in 732. The mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated that raiding party at the Battle of Tours (actually the Battle of Poitiers) and earned respect and power within the Frankish Kingdom. The assumption of the crown in 751 by Pippin the Short (son of Charles Martel) established the Carolingian dynasty.
The coronation of Charlemagne
The new rulers' power reached its fullest extent under Pippin's son Charlemagne, who in 771 reunited the Frankish domains after a further period of division, subsequently conquering the Lombards under Desiderius in what is now northern Italy (774), incorporating Bavaria (788) into his realm, defeating the Avars of the Danubian plain (796), advancing the frontier with Islamic Spain as far south as Barcelona (801), and subjugating Lower Saxony (804) after prolonged campaigning.
In recognition of his successes and his political support for the Papacy, Charlemagne was in 800 crowned Emperor of the Romans, or Roman Emperor in the West, by Pope Leo III. On the death of Charlemagne's son Louis I (emperor 814-840), Charles the Bald, and Louis the German swore allegiance to each other against their brother in the Oath of Strasbourg, and the empire was divided among Louis's three sons (Treaty of Verdun, 843). After a last brief reunification (884-887), the imperial title ceased to be held in the western realm which was to form the basis of the future French kingdom. The eastern realm, which would become Germany, elected the Saxon dynasty of Henry the Fowler.
Under the Carolingians, the kingdom was ravaged by Viking raiders. In this struggle some important figures such as Count Odo of Paris and his brother King Robert rose to fame and became kings. This emerging dynasty, called the Robertines, was the predecessor of the Capetian Dynasty, who were descended from the Robertines. Led by Rollo, the Vikings had settled in Normandy and were granted the land first as counts and then as dukes by King Charles the Simple. The people that emerged from the interactions between Vikings and the mix of Franks and Gallo-Romans became known as the Normans.
See also:
List of Frankish Kings
Merovingians
Carolingians
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Renaissance
Early Middle Ages
France in the Middle-Ages (987-1453)
Main article: France in the Middle Ages
Hugh Capet was elected by an assembly summoned in Reims on 1 June 987. Capet was previously "Duke of the Franks" (Dux Francorum), and then became "King of the Franks" (Rex Francorum). He was recorded to be recognised king by the Gauls, Bretons, Danes, Aquitanians, Goths, Spanish and Gascons.[1] The Danes here are certainly the Normans (of Normandy), and the Spanish entry probably refers to the Carolingian Spanish marches. Hugh Capet's reign was marked by the loss of the Spanish marches as they grew more and more independant, Count Borell of Barcelona called for Hugh's help against islamic raids. If Hugh intended to help Borell he was occupied fighting Charles of Lorraine. Spanish principalities then followed their way. His son -Robert the Pious- met the Emperor in 1023 on the borderline. They agreed to end all claims over each other's realm, setting a new stage of Capetian and Ottonian relationships.
The French kingdom was a very decentralised kingdom. If the king ventured outside of his own small personal possessions, he risked being captured by his own vassals. This is especially true for the early Capetians, but from Louis VI onward, royal authority became more accepted. Even more powerful vassals such as Henry Plantagenet did homage to the French kings.[2] Louis VII was well served by a competent advisor, Abbot Suger, who helped him gain the respect of the nobles. Suger's vision of construction became known as the Gothic Architecture during the later renaissance. This style became standard for most French cathedrals built in the late middle-age. Some of these vassals would grow so powerful that they would be among the strongest rulers of western Europe. The Normans, the Plantagenets, the Lusignans, the Hautevilles, the Ramnulfids, and the House of Toulouse successfully carved lands outside of France for themselves. The most important of these conquests for the French history was the Norman Conquest of England following the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror because it linked England to France through Normandy. The Norman nobles then commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry. These lords created an "Old French"–speaking diaspora across Europe and the Holy Land.
Philip II victorious at Bouvines and thus annexing Normandy and Anjou into his royal domains.
Most remarkable was the Angevin Empire which was probably the greatest threat to the King of France, resulting from both the Norman Conquest of England and The Anarchy. The Battle of Bouvines was probably the most important event in the collapse of this so-called empire. In addition to defeating John of England, Philip Augustus founded the Sorbonne and made Paris a city of scholars. His grandson Saint Louis inflicted further defeats on the Angevins during the Saintonge War and also supported new forms of art such as Gothic architecture and his Sainte-Chapelle became a very famous gothic building, he is also credited for the Morgan Bible. While the French kings were struggling against the Plantagenets the Church called for the Albigensian Crusade. Southern France was then largely absorbed in the royal domains.
Saint Louis. He saw France's cultural expansion in the Western Christian world.
It can be said that France became a truly centralised kingdom under Saint Louis, who initiated several administrative reforms. More administrative reforms were made by Philip the Fair. This king was responsible for the end of the Templars, signed the Auld Alliance, and established the Parlement of Paris. Philip IV was so powerful that he could name popes and emperors, unlike the early Capetians. The papacy was moved to Avignon and all the contemporary popes were French such as Philip IV's puppet: Bertrand de Goth.
The tensions between the Houses of Anjou and Capet climaxed during the so-called Hundred Years' War (actually several distinct wars) when the English descendants of the former claimed the throne of France from the Valois. This was also the time of the Black Death as well as several civil wars. The French population suffered very much from these wars. It has been argued that the difficult conditions the French population suffered during the Hundred Years' War awakened French nationalism, a nationalism represented by Joan of Arc. Although this is debatable, the Hundred Years War is remembered more as a Franco-English war than as a succession of feudal struggles. During this war, France evolved politically and militarily. Although a Franco-Scottish army was successful at Baugé, the humiliating defeats of Poitiers and Agincourt forced the French nobility to realise they could not stand just as armoured knights without an organised army. Charles VII established the first French standing army, the Compagnies d'ordonnance, and defeated the English once at Patay and again, using canons, at Formigny. The Battle of Châtillon was regarded as the last engagement of this "war", yet Calais remained under English and French control.
Early Modern France (1453-1789)
Main article: Early Modern France
France evolved from a feudal country to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy that relied on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the established Church. France engaged in the long Italian Wars (1494-1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. Francis I faced powerful foes, and he was captured at Pavia. The French monarchy then sought for allies and found one in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa captured Nice on 5 August 1543 and handed it down to Francis I. These times also gave birth to the Protestant Reformation, and John Calvin and his reformed doctrine challenged the power of the Catholic Church in France. During the 16th century, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs were the dominant power in Europe. In addition to Spain and Austria, they controlled a number of kingdoms and duchies across Europe. Charles Quint, as Count of Burgundy, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon, Castile and Germany (among many other titles) encircled France. The Spanish Tercio was used with great success against French knights and remained undefeated for a long time. Finally on January 7, 1558 the Duke of Guise seized Calais from the English.
Despite the challenge to French power posed by the Habsburgs, French became the preferred language of Europe's aristocracy. Charles Quint (born in 1500) said this about languages:
“
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
”
Because of its international status, there was a desire to regulate the French language. Several reforms of the French language worked to uniformise it. The Renaissance writer François Rabelais (probably born in 1494) helped to shape the French language as a literary language, Rabelais' French is characterised by the re-introduction of Latin and Greek words. Jacques Peletier du Mans (born 1517) was one of the scholars that reformed the French language. He improved Nicolas Chuquet's long scale system by adding names for intermediate numbers (milliards instead of thousand million, etc...). During the 16th century the French kingdom also established colonies began to claim North American territories. Jacques Cartier was one of the great explorers who ventured deep into American territories during the 16th century. The largest group of French colonies became known as New France, and several cities such as Quebec City, Montreal, Detroit and New Orleans were founded by the French.
Religious conflicts
Main article: Wars of Religionand
Main article: Thirty Years War
Henry IV of France, King of France and Navarre, was the first French Bourbon king.
Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. The War of Religions culminated in the War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III assassinated Henry de Guise, leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic league, and the king was murdered in return. Following this war Henry III of Navarre became king of France as Henry IV and enforced the Edict of Nantes (1598). Religious conflicts resumed under Louis XIII when Cardinal de Richelieu forced the Protestants to disarm their army and fortresses. This conflict ended in the Siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628), in which Protestants and their English supporters were defeated. The following Peace of Alais confirmed religious freedom yet dismantled the Protestant defences. This was also a time of philosophy. René Descartes sought answers to philosophical questions through the use of logic and reason and formulated what would be called Cartesian Dualism in 1641.
The religious conflicts that plagued France also ravaged the Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire. The Thirty Years' War eroded the power of the Catholic Habsburgs. Although Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful chief minister of France, had previously mauled the Protestants, he joined this war on their side in 1636. Imperial Habsburg forces invaded France, ravaged Champagne, and nearly threatened Paris. Richelieu died in 1642 and was replaced by Mazarin, while Louis XIII died one year later and was succeeded by Louis XIV. France was served by some very efficient commanders such as Louis II de Bourbon and Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne. The French forces won a decisive victory at Rocroi (1643), and the Spanish army was decimated; the Tercio was broken. The Truce of Ulm (1647) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) brought an end to the war. But some challenges remained. France was hit by civil unrest known as the Fronde which in turn evolved into the Franco-Spanish War in 1653. Louis II de Bourbon joined the Spanish army this time but was inflicted a severe defeat at Dunkirk (1658) by Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne. The terms for the peace inflicted upon the Spanish kingdoms in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) were harsh, as France annexed Northern Catalonia.
Louis XIV
Louis XIV, the "Sun King"
The Sun King wanted to be remembered as a patron of the arts, like his ancestor Louis IX. He invited Jean-Baptiste Lully to establish the French opera. A tumultuous friendship was established between Lully and Molière. Jules Hardouin Mansart became France's most important architect of the time. Louis XIV's long reign saw France involved in many wars that drained its treasury. His reign began during the Thirty Years' War and during the Franco-Spanish war. His military architect, Vauban, became famous for his pentagonal fortresses, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert supported the royal spending as much as possible. France fought the War of Devolution against Spain in 1667. France's defeat Spain and invasion of the Spanish Netherlands alarmed England and Sweden. With the Dutch Republic they formed the Triple Alliance to check Louis XIV's expansion. Louis II de Bourbon had captured Franche-Comté, but in face of an indefensible position, Louis XIV agreed to a peace at Aachen. Under its terms, Louis XIV did not annex Franche-Comté but did gain Lille.
Peace was fragile, and war broke out again between France and the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678). Louis XIV asked for the Dutch Republic to resume war against the Spanish Netherlands, but the republic refused. France attacked the Dutch Republic and was joined by England in this conflict. Through deliberate floods, the French invasion of the Dutch Republic was brought to a halt. The Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter inflicted a few strategic defeats on the Anglo-French naval alliance and forced England to retire from the war in (1674). Because the Netherlands could not resist eternally, it agreed to peace in the Treaties of Nijmegen, according to which France would annex France-Comté and acquired further concessions in the Spanish Netherlands. On 6 May 1682, the royal court moved to the Palace of Versailles, which Louis XIV had greatly expanded. Peace, once again, did not last, and war between France and Spain resumed once again. The War of the Reunions broke out (1683-1684), and once again Spain, with its ally the Holy Roman Empire, was easily defeated. Meanwhile, in October 1685 Louis signed the Edict of Fontainebleau ordering the destruction of all Protestant churches and schools in France. Its immediate consequence was a large Protestant exodus from France.
France would soon be involved into another war, the War of the Grand Alliance. This time the threatre was not only in Europe but also in North America. Although the war was long and difficult, its results were inconclusive. The Treaty of Ryswick confirmed French sovereignty over Alsace yet rejected its claims to Luxembourg. Louis also had to evacuate Catalonia and the Palatinate. This peace was considered a truce by all sides, thus war was to start again. In 1701 the War of the Spanish Succession began. The Bourbon Philip of Anjou was designated heir to the throne of Spain. The Habsburg Emperor Leopold opposed a Bourbon succession, because of the power that such a succession would bring to the Bourbon rulers of France. England and the Dutch Republic joined Leopold against Louis XIV and Philip of Anjou. The allied forces were led by John Churchill and by Prince Eugene of Savoy. They achieved resounding defeats of the French army, yet after Malplaquet, a Pyrrhic victory, they had lost too many men to continue the war. Led by Villars the French forces recovered much of the ground they had lost in battles such as Denain. Finally, a compromise was agreed on at Ultrecht in 1713. Philip of Anjou was confirmed as Philip V, king of Spain, but he was barred from inheriting France.
Colonial struggles and the dawn of the revolution
Louis XIV died in 1714 of gangrene. In 1718 France was, once again, at war as Philip II of Orleans's regency joined the War of the Quadruple Alliance against Spain. King Philip V of Spain had to withdraw from the conflict confronted with the reality that Spain was no longer a great power of Europe. Under Fleury's administration, peace was maintained as much as possible. However, in 1733 another war broke in central Europe, this time about the Polish succession, and France joined the war against the Austrian Empire. This time there was no invasion of the Netherlands, and Britain remained neutral. As a consequence, Austria was left alone against a Franco-Spanish alliance and faced a military disaster. Peace was setted in the Treaty of Vienna (1738), according to which France would annex, through inheritance, the Duchy of Lorraine. Two years later war broke out over the Austrian succession, and France seized the opportunity to join the conflict. The war played out in North America and India as well as Europe, and inconclusive terms were agreed to in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). Once again, no one regarded this as a peace but rather as a mere truce. Prussia was then becoming a new threat as it had gained substantial territory from Austria. This led to the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, in which the alliances seen during the previous war were mostly inverted. France was now allied to Austria and Russia while Britain was now allied to Prussia. In the North American theatre, France was allied with various Indian peoples during the Seven Years War and, despite a temporary success at the battles of the Great Meadows and Monongahela, French forces were defeated at the disastrous Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec. In Europe, Russia was on the verge of crushing Prussia, and the Anglo-Prussian alliance was saved by The miracle of the House of Brandenburg, while the French suffered naval defeats against British fleets at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. Finally peace was concluded in the Treaty of Paris (1763), and France lost most of its North American empire. In 1768 the French Kingdom bought Corsica from Genoa.
Lord Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown to American and French allies.
Having lost its colonial empire, France saw a good opportunity for revenge against Britain during the American Revolutionary War. Spain also joined the war on the American side but suffered a strong naval defeat at Cape St. Vincent. Admiral de Grasse defeated a British fleet at Chesapeake Bay while Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur and Gilbert du Motier joined American forces in defeating the British at Yorktown. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Paris (1783), under which and Britain lost its former American colonies.
While the state was expanded yet broke new ideas on the role of the king and the powers of the state, Charles de Secondat described the separation of powers. Many philosophers became well influential among the French intellectual class such as: Voltaire, Denis Diderot and most importantly Jean-Jacques Rousseau with The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right. Louis XVI commissioned a unified system of units for his kingdom, French scientists such as Antoine Lavoisier then worked on create a scientific system to replace the anarchic ones used previously. Lavoisier also worked on the Conservation of mass and recognised Oxygen and Hydrogen.
The Revolution
Main article: French Revolution
Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789
On May 28, 1789, the Abbot Sieyès moved that the Third Estate proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so, and then voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly. Tensions finally caused the Third Estate to pronounce the Tennis Court Oath on June 20 1789 after finding the door to their chamber locked and guarded. They were joined by some members of the second and first estates in the conflict against the king. On July 14, 1789, after four hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor and several of his guards. Gilbert du Motier, hero of the American independence, took command of the national guard and the king was forced to recognise the Tricolour Cockade. Although peace was found several nobles did not regard the new order as acceptable and migrated to push neighbouring kingdoms to war against the new rule. Because of this new period of unstability the state was struck by the Great Fear, the two classes were scared of each other. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen tried to give everyone egual rights and France's administrative map was totally changed, moving from provinces to départements. Rising conflicts between two factions brought even more unstability to the already weak regime as some wanted a constitutional monarchy and some wanted a republic. During riots Gilbert du Motier ordered the National Guard to open fire on the protesting crowd. Republican publications were censored afterward. In the Declaration of Pillnitz outsiders such as: Emperor Leopold II, Count Charles of Artois and King William II of Prussia made Louis XVI's cause theirs. These noblemen also required the assembly to be dissolved through threats of war but instead of cowing the French institutions this infuriated them. The borderlines were militarised as a consequence. Under the Constitution of 1791 the solution of a constitutional monarchy was adopted and the king supported a war against Austria in order to increase his popularity starting the long French Revolutionary Wars. On the night of the 10th of August the Jacobins, who had mainly opposed the war, suspended the monarchy. With the Prussian army entering France more doubts raised against the aristocracy, these tensions climaxed during the September Massacres. After the first great victory of the French revolutionary troops at the battle of Valmy on 1792 September 20 the French First Republic was proclaimed the day after on 1792 September 21. The French Republican Calendar was enforced. The Brunswick Manifesto threatened once more the French population from Austrian (Imperial) and Prussian attacks if royalist advance in France was still opposed, following this threat Louis XVI was suspected of treason and was guillotined on 21 January 1793. Spain, Naples, Great-Britain and The Netherlands joined Austria and Prussia in their war against France. The Republican government was radicalised after a diplomatic coup from the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror was now reality. Royalist invading forces were defeated at Toulon in 1793, leaving the French republican forces in an offensive position and granting a young officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, a certain fame. Following their victory at Fleurus the Republicans occupied Belgium and the Rhineland. An invasion of the Netherlands established the puppet Batavian Republic. Finally a peace agreement was found between France, Spain and Prussia in 1795 at Basel, while France withdrew its forces from occupied parts of the eastern Rhine and Northern Spain it remained in control of all the western bank of the Rhine. Sardinia, Austria and Britain were still at war against France and General Napoleon Bonaparte was highly successful against them as he captured Milan and defeated several Austrian armies sent to relieve Mantua from a siege he led. Finally Mantua fell and Napoleon invaded Tyrol while General Hoche was invading Germany, Austria was compelled to sign the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 losing Belgium to France. The republican government also enforced the Système International d'Unités, commissioned by Louis XVI, and which became known as the Metric System. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb and André-Marie Ampère's works on electricity and electromagnetism were also recognised and their units are integrated in the Metric System.
The Napoleonic Era
Napoleon on his Imperial throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
During the War of the First Coalition the Directoire had replaced the National Convention. Five directors then ruled France. As Great-Britain was still at war with France a plan was made to take Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, allied to Great-Britain. This was Napoleon's idea and the Directoire agreed to the plan in order to send the popular general away from the mainland. Napoleon captured Malta from the Knights of Saint John on the way to Egypt. The French army met Ottoman forces during the Battle of the Pyramids and defeated them. While the land campaign was so far a success, the British fleet, led by Admiral Nelson, managed to destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Hearing of the destruction of the French fleet, the Ottoman Empire gathered armies to attack Napoleon in Egypt, and Napoleon adopted a policy of attack again. An invasion of Syria was planned but failed during the Siege of Acre. Napoleon had to come back to the mainland leaving a significant part of his army behind. These men were supposed to be given honourable term by the British forces yet Admiral Keith decided to attack them anyway with a Mameluk force, although this force was defeated at Heliopolis in March 1800. Disease had hit the French troops to such a point they had to surrender. The Rosetta Stone was discovered during this campaign and Champollion translated it.
When Napoleon came back to France the Directoire was threatened by the Second Coalition. Royalists and their allies still dreamed of putting back the monarchy to power while the Prussian and Austrian crowns did not accept their territorial losses during the previous war. The Russian army expelled the French one from Italy in battles such as Cassano while the Austrian army defeated the French one in Switzerland at Stockach and Zurich. Napoleon then seized power through a coup and established the Consulate in 1799. The Austrian army was defeated at Marengo in 1800 and again at Hohenlinden. While on sea Admiral Louis-René Levassor de Latouche Tréville had some success at Boulogne against a British fleet, Admiral Nelson would destroy an anchored Danish fleet at Copenhagen. The Second Coalition was beaten and peace was settled in two distinct treaties: The Treaty of Lunéville and the Treaty of Amiens. In 1803 Napoleon sold French Louisiana to the American government, a territory he considered indefensible.
On 21 March 1804 the Napoleonic Code was applied over all the territory and on may 18 Napoleon was titled Emperor by the senate thus founding the French Empire. Technically Napoleon's rule was constitutional, although autocratic it was much more advanced than other European monarchies of the time. The proclamation of the French Empire was met by the Third Coalition. The French army was renamed the Grande Armée in 1805 and Napoleon used propaganda and nationalism to control the French population. The French army achieved a resounding victory at Ulm where an entire Austrian army was captured. A Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at Trafalgar and all plan to invade Britain were then made impossible. Despite this naval defeat it was on ground battle that this war would be won, Napoleon inflicted the Austrian and Russian Empires one of their greatest defeat at Austerlitz destroying the third coalition. The peace was settled in the Treaty of Pressburg, the Austrian Empire lost the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Confederation of the Rhine was created by Napoleon over former Austrian territories.
The destruction of the Holy Roman Empire and the dramatic Austrian defeat caused Prussia to join Great-Britain and Russia. Thus forming the Fourth Coalition. They were joined by other allies but then again the French Empire was not alone since it now had a complex network of allies and submitted states. Largely outnumbered the Prussian army was crushed at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, Napoleon captured Berlin and went as far as Eastern Prussia. There the Russian Empire was defeated at the Battle of Friedland. Peace was dictated in the Treaties of Tilsit in which Russia had to join the Continental System and Prussia handed down half of its territories to France.
Freed from his obligation to the east Napoleon then went back to the west as the French Empire was still at war with Britain. Only two countries remained neutral in the war: Sweden and Portugal, and Napoleon then looked toward the latter. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau a Franco-Spanish alliance against Portugal was sealed as Spain eyed Portuguese territories. French armies entering Spain in order to attack Portugal but then seized Spanish forteresses and took over the kingdom by surprise, Joseph Bonaparte was made King of Spain after Charles IV's abdication. This occupation of the Iberian peninsula fueled nationalism and soon Spanish and Portuguese would fight the French using guerillas and defeated the French forces at the Battle of Bailén. Great-Britain send a short lived ground support to Portugal and French forces evacuated Portugal as defined in the Convention of Sintra follow the Battle of Vimeiro. France was only controlling Catalonia and Navarre and could have been definitely expelled from the Iberian peninsula had the Spanish armies attacked again but it did not. Another attack was launched on Spain, led by Napoleon himself, and was described as "an avalanche of fire and steel." Although the French Empire was no longer regarded as invincible by European powers. In 1808 Austria formed the War of the Fifth Coalition in order to break down the French Empire. The Austrian Empire defeated the French one at Aspern-Essling yet was beaten at Wagram while the Polish allies defeated the Austrian Empire at Raszyn. Although not as decisive as the previous Austrian defeats the peace treaty caused Austria to lose a large amount of territories, reducing it even more.
Napoleon Bonaparte leaving Russia after a disastrous campaign.
In 1812 it was with Russia that war broke, engaging Napoleon in the disastrous Patriotic War. Napoleon assembled the largest army Europe had ever seen, including toops from all submitted states, to invade Russia who just left the continental system and was gathering an army on the Polish frontier. Following the Battle of Borodino the Grande Armée entered and captured Moscow, just to find it burned to the ground by a scorched earth Russian warfare. Although there still were battles such as Maloyaroslavets the Napoleonic army left Russia decimated by the Russian winter and scorched earth warfare. On the Spanish front the French troops were defeated at Vitoria and than at the Battle of the Pyrenees. While facing a bigger and bigger guerilla the French troops definitely evacuated Spain. Being defeated on these two fronts gave all states controlled and previously defeated by Napoleon a good opportunity to strike him back. The Sixth Coalition was formed and the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine switched side, finally opposing Napoleon. Napoleon was largely defeated in the Battle of the Nations and was overwhelmed by much larger armies during the Six Days Campaign, although because of the much larger amount of casualties suffered by the allies in the campaign the Six Days are often considered a tactical masterpiece.
Napoleon abdicated on April 6 1814, Napoleon was exiled to Elba. The Congress of Vienna, due to a Conservative Order, tried to undo the political changes from to the wars thus attempting to save peace. The last parts of the Napoleonic Wars were the Hundred Days ending by his final defeat at Waterloo. The monarchy was subsequently restored and Louis XVIII became king.
The Restored Monarchy and the Second Empire
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French
This period of time is called the Bourbon Restoration and was marked by conflicts between reactionaries Ultra-royalists and more liberal movements. On 12 June 1830 Polignac, King Charles X's minister, took profit of the Algerian Dey's weakness to invade Algeria and establish a French rule in Algeria. The news of the fall of Algiers had barely reached Paris that Charles X was deposed for King Louis-Philippe during the July Revolution. Louis-Philippe's "July Monarchy" (1830–1848) is generally seen as a period during which the haute bourgeoisie was dominant. Anarchism began to take roots in France and that was represented by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. To honour the victim of the July Revolution Hector Berlioz composed a Requiem, he also worked on the French anthem La Marseillaise. In 1838 the French government declared war on Mexico after a French pastry cook in Mexico accused Mexican officers of looting his shop. The Mexican government was defeated in that short Pastry War. Finally the last King of France abdicated and the French Second Republic was proclaimed, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president and proclaimed himself President for Life following a coup that was confirmed and accepted in a dubious referendum. Napoleon III of France took the imperial title from 1852 to 1870. The era saw great industrialization, urbanization (including the massive rebuilding of Paris by Baron Haussmann) and economic growth, but Napoleon III's foreign policies would not be so successful. In 1859 the Second Italian War of Independence broke between Italian states and Austria, the Second French Empire joined the war on the Italian side which was concluded by an Austrian defeat at Solferino. In return of this intervention the French government acquired definitely the city of Nice while on March 1860 Savoy was annexed through similar means. In 1861 Napoleon III largely supported Maxililian in his claim over Mexico, a move that was also supported by Britain and Spain but condemned by the USA. This led to the French intervention in Mexico which turned out to be a failure. While France was negotiating with The Netherlands about purchasing Luxembourg the Prussian Kingdom threatened the French government with war. This came as a shock to French diplomats as there previously was an agreement between the Prussian and French governments about Luxembourg. Napoleon III suffered stronger and stronger criticism from Republicans like Jules Favre and his position seemed more fragile with the passage of time. The Second Empire joined the Crimean War which opposed France and Britain to the Russian Empire and the Russian forces were decisively defeated at Sevastopol in 1855 and at Inkerman. In 1856 France joined the Second Opium War on the British side against China, a missionary's murder was used as a pretext to take interests in southwest Asia in the Treaty of Tientsin.
Rising tensions about a possible Prussian succession in Spain raised the scale of animosity between the two states and finally the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) broke. German Nationalism united the German states against Napoleon III with the exception of Austria. Overwhelmed, the French Empire was defeated decisively at Metz and Sedan. The last straw was the Siege of Paris and the newly formed German Empire subsequently annexed Alsace-Lorraine in the Treaty of Frankfurt.
The Third Republic and the Belle Epoque
Main article: French Third Republic
The French legislature established the Third Republic which was to last until the military defeat of 1940 (longer than any government in France since the Revolution). The birth of the republic saw France occupied by foreign troops, the capital in a popular socialist insurection — the Paris Commune (which was violently repressed by Adolphe Thiers) — and two provinces (Alsace-Lorraine) annexed to Germany. Feelings of national guilt and a desire for vengeance ("revanchism") would be major preoccupations of the French throughout the next half century. The repression of the commune was bloody. Hundreds were executed in front of the Communards' Wall in the Père Lachaise cemetery, while thousands of others were marched to Versailles for trials. The number killed during La Semaine Sanglante (The Bloody Week) can never be established for certain but the best estimates are 30,000 dead, many more wounded, and perhaps as many as 50,000 later executed or imprisoned; 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia. Thousands of them fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States.
Beside this defeat, the Republican movement also had to confront the counterrevolutionaries who rejected the legacy of the 1789 Revolution. Both the Legitimist and the Orleanist royalists rejected republicanism, which they saw as an extension of modernity and atheism, breaking with France's traditions. This lasted until at least the 16 May 1877 crisis, which finally led to the resignation of royalist Marshal MacMahon in January 1879. The death of Henri, comte de Chambord in 1883, who, as the grandson of Charles X, had refused to abandon the fleur-de-lys and the white flag, thus jeopardizing the alliance between Legitimists and Orleanists, convinced many of the remaining Orleanists to rally themselves to the Republic, as Adolphe Thiers had already done. The vast majority of the Legitimists abandoned the political arena or became marginalised. Some of them founded Action Française in 1898, during the Dreyfus Affair, which became an influent movement through-out the 1930s, in particular among the intellectuals of Paris' Quartier Latin. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII's encyclic Rerum Novarum legitimised to the Social Catholic movement, which in France could be traced back to Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais' efforts under the July Monarchy.
The initial republic was in effect led by pro-royalists, but republicans (the "Radicals") and bonapartists scrambled for power. The period from 1879–1899 saw power come into the hands of moderate republicans and former "radicals" (around Léon Gambetta); these were called the "Opportunists". The newly found Republican control on the Republic allowed the vote of the 1881 and 1882 Jules Ferry laws on a free, mandatory and laic public education.
The moderates however became deeply divided over the Dreyfus Affair, and this allowed the Radicals to eventually gain power from 1899 until the Great War. During this period, crises like the potential "Boulangist" coup d'état (see Georges Boulanger) in 1889, showed the fragility of the republic. The Radicals' policies on education (suppression of local languages, compulsory education), mandatory military service, and control of the working classes eliminated internal dissent and regionalisms, while their participation in the Scramble for Africa and in the acquiring of overseas possessions (such as French Indochina) created myths of French greatness. Both of these processes transformed a country of regionalisms into a modern nation state. Conflicts between the Chinese Emperor and the French Republic over Indochina climaxed during the Sino-French War, Admiral Courbet destroyed the Chinese fleet anchored at Foochow. French sovereignty over Tonkin and Annam was confirmed.
In an effort to isolate Germany, France went to great pains to woo Russia and the United Kingdom to its side, first by means of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, then the 1904 Entente Cordiale with the U.K, and finally, with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907 this became the Triple Entente, which eventually led Russia and the UK to enter World War I as Allies.
Distrust of Germany, faith in the army and native French anti-semitism combined to make the Dreyfus Affair (the unjust trial and condemnation of a Jewish military officer for treason) a political scandal of the utmost gravity. The nation was divided between "dreyfusards" and "anti-dreyfusards" and far-right Catholic agitators inflamed the situation even when proofs of Dreyfus' innocence came to light. The writer Emile Zola published an impassioned editorial on the injustice, and was himself condemned by the government for libel. Once Dreyfus was finally pardoned, the progressive legislature enacted the 1905 laws on laïcité which created a complete separation of church and state and stripped churches of most of their property rights.
Eiffel Tower under construction in July 1888.
The period and the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century is often termed the belle époque. Although associated with cultural innovations and popular amusements (cabaret, cancan, the cinema, new art forms such as Impressionism and Art Nouveau), France was nevertheless a nation divided internally on notions of religion, class, regionalisms and money, and on the international front France came repeatedly to the brink of war with the other imperial powers, including Great Britain (the Fashoda Incident). World War I was inevitable, but its human and financial costs would be catastrophic for the French.
In 1889 the Exposition Universelle took place in Paris and the Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary gate to the fair. Meant to last only a few decades the tower was never removed and became France's most iconic landmark.
Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric France
The Neanderthals, the earliest Homo sapiens, began to occupy Europe from about 200,000 BC. but seem to have died out by about 30,000 years ago, presumably out-competed by the modern humans during a period of cold weather. The earliest modern humans — Homo sapiens sapiens — entered Europe (including France) around 50,000 years ago (the Upper Palaeolithic).
From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, Indo-European and Proto-Celtic peoples spread across Western Europe. During the final stages of the Iron Age the La Tène culture gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times.
Gaul
Main article: Gaul
Gaul covered large parts of modern day France, Belgium and Northwest Germany. Gaul was a land inhabited by many Celtic tribes Romans referred to as Gauls who spoke the Gaulish language. On the southwestern part of the Garonne the people spoke an archaic language related to Basque, the Aquitanian language. The Celts founded cities such as Lutetia Parisiorum and Burdigala while the Aquitanians founded Tolosa.
Long before any Roman settlements, Greek navigators settled in what would become Provence. The Phoceans founded important cities such as Massalia and Nicaea which brought them in to conflict with the neighboring Celts and Ligurians. The Celts themselves were often fighting against Aquitanians and Germans while a Gaulish war band led by Brennus invaded Rome circa 300BC following the Battle of the Allia.
When he fought the Romans Hannibal Barca recruited several Gaulish mercenaries against Rome, it was this Gaulish participation that caused Provence to be annexed by the Roman Republic. Then the Consul of Gaul -Julius Caesar- conquered all of Gaul.
Despite Gaulish opposition led by Vercingetorix, the Overking of the Warriors, Gauls succumbed to Roman onslaught, the Gauls had some success at first at Gergovia yet they would be ultimately defeated at Alesia. The Romans founded cities such as Lugdunum and Narbonensis.
Roman Gaul
Main article: Roman Gaul
Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar after Alesia. Painting by Lionel-Noël Royer, 1899.
Gaul was divided into several different provinces. The Romans displaced populations in order to prevent local identities to become a threat to the Roman integrity. Thus, many Celts were displaced in Aquitania or were enslaved and moved out of Gaul. There was a strong cultural evolution in Gaul under the Roman Empire, the most obvious one being the replacement of the Gaulish language by Vulgar Latin. It has been argued the similarities between the Gaulish and Latin languages favoured the transition. Gaul remained under Roman control for centuries.
Following Nero’s suicide the Roman Empire was hit by civil unrest. The man that took Rome and installed Vespasian as Emperor, namely Marcus Antonius Primus, was born in Palladia Tolosa and Gauls became better integrated with the Empire with the passage of time. In the decade following Valerian’s capture by the Persians there was a short lived Gallic Empire established by Postumus. This loose Empire included the Iberian Peninsula and Britannia in addition to Gaul itself. Germanic tribes entered Gaul at this time; they were the Franks and the Alamanni. Emperor Aurelian recaptured Gaul in 274 at Chalons thus ending the Gallic Empire.
Gaul soldiers.
A migration of Celts appeared in the 4th century in Armorica. They were led by the legendary king Conan Meriadoc and came from Britain. They spoke the now extinct British language which evolved into the Breton, Cornish and Welsh languages. In 418 the Aquitanian province was given to the Goths in exchange for their support against the Vandals. Those Goths had previously sacked Rome in 410 and established a capital in Toulouse. The Roman Empire had difficulty responding to all the barbarian raids, and Flavius Aëtius had to use these tribes against each other in order to maintain some Roman control. He first used Huns against Burgundians and these mercenaries destroyed Worms, killed king Gunther, and pushed the Burgundians westward. The Burgundians were resettled by Aëtius near Lugdunum in 443. The Huns, united by Attila became a greater threat, and Aëtius used the Visigoths against the Huns. The conflict climaxed in 451 at the Battle of Chalons, in which the Romans and Goths defeated Attila.
The Roman Empire was on the verge of collapsing. Aquitania was definitely abandoned to the Visigoths who would soon conquer a significant part of southern Gaul as well as most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Burgundians claimed their own kingdom, and northern Gaul was practically abandoned to the Franks.
Frankish kingdoms (486-987)
Main article: Frankish Empire
The Battle of Poitiers. This battle is often considered of macro-importance in European and islamic history.
In 486,Clovis I, leader of the Salian Franks, defeated Syagrius at Soissons and subsequently united most of northern and central Gaul under his rule. Clovis then recorded a succession of victories against other Germanic tribes such as the Alamanni at Tolbiac. In 496, he adopted the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. This gave him greater legitimacy and power over his Christian subjects and granted him clerical support against the Visigoths. He defeated Alaric II at Vouillé in 507 and annexed Aquitaine, and thus Toulouse, into his Frankish kingdom. The Goths retired to Toledo in what would become Spain. Clovis made Paris his capital but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land purely as a private possession and divided it among heirs, so four kingdoms emerged: Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and Rheims. The Merovingian dynasty eventually lost effective power to their successive mayors of the palace, the founders of what was to become the Carolingian dynasty. Muslims invaders had conquered Hispania and were threatening the Frankish kingdoms. Duke Odo the Great defeated a major invading force at Toulouse in 721 but failed to repel a raiding party in 732. The mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated that raiding party at the Battle of Tours (actually the Battle of Poitiers) and earned respect and power within the Frankish Kingdom. The assumption of the crown in 751 by Pippin the Short (son of Charles Martel) established the Carolingian dynasty.
The coronation of Charlemagne
The new rulers' power reached its fullest extent under Pippin's son Charlemagne, who in 771 reunited the Frankish domains after a further period of division, subsequently conquering the Lombards under Desiderius in what is now northern Italy (774), incorporating Bavaria (788) into his realm, defeating the Avars of the Danubian plain (796), advancing the frontier with Islamic Spain as far south as Barcelona (801), and subjugating Lower Saxony (804) after prolonged campaigning.
In recognition of his successes and his political support for the Papacy, Charlemagne was in 800 crowned Emperor of the Romans, or Roman Emperor in the West, by Pope Leo III. On the death of Charlemagne's son Louis I (emperor 814-840), Charles the Bald, and Louis the German swore allegiance to each other against their brother in the Oath of Strasbourg, and the empire was divided among Louis's three sons (Treaty of Verdun, 843). After a last brief reunification (884-887), the imperial title ceased to be held in the western realm which was to form the basis of the future French kingdom. The eastern realm, which would become Germany, elected the Saxon dynasty of Henry the Fowler.
Under the Carolingians, the kingdom was ravaged by Viking raiders. In this struggle some important figures such as Count Odo of Paris and his brother King Robert rose to fame and became kings. This emerging dynasty, called the Robertines, was the predecessor of the Capetian Dynasty, who were descended from the Robertines. Led by Rollo, the Vikings had settled in Normandy and were granted the land first as counts and then as dukes by King Charles the Simple. The people that emerged from the interactions between Vikings and the mix of Franks and Gallo-Romans became known as the Normans.
See also:
List of Frankish Kings
Merovingians
Carolingians
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Renaissance
Early Middle Ages
France in the Middle-Ages (987-1453)
Main article: France in the Middle Ages
Hugh Capet was elected by an assembly summoned in Reims on 1 June 987. Capet was previously "Duke of the Franks" (Dux Francorum), and then became "King of the Franks" (Rex Francorum). He was recorded to be recognised king by the Gauls, Bretons, Danes, Aquitanians, Goths, Spanish and Gascons.[1] The Danes here are certainly the Normans (of Normandy), and the Spanish entry probably refers to the Carolingian Spanish marches. Hugh Capet's reign was marked by the loss of the Spanish marches as they grew more and more independant, Count Borell of Barcelona called for Hugh's help against islamic raids. If Hugh intended to help Borell he was occupied fighting Charles of Lorraine. Spanish principalities then followed their way. His son -Robert the Pious- met the Emperor in 1023 on the borderline. They agreed to end all claims over each other's realm, setting a new stage of Capetian and Ottonian relationships.
The French kingdom was a very decentralised kingdom. If the king ventured outside of his own small personal possessions, he risked being captured by his own vassals. This is especially true for the early Capetians, but from Louis VI onward, royal authority became more accepted. Even more powerful vassals such as Henry Plantagenet did homage to the French kings.[2] Louis VII was well served by a competent advisor, Abbot Suger, who helped him gain the respect of the nobles. Suger's vision of construction became known as the Gothic Architecture during the later renaissance. This style became standard for most French cathedrals built in the late middle-age. Some of these vassals would grow so powerful that they would be among the strongest rulers of western Europe. The Normans, the Plantagenets, the Lusignans, the Hautevilles, the Ramnulfids, and the House of Toulouse successfully carved lands outside of France for themselves. The most important of these conquests for the French history was the Norman Conquest of England following the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror because it linked England to France through Normandy. The Norman nobles then commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry. These lords created an "Old French"–speaking diaspora across Europe and the Holy Land.
Philip II victorious at Bouvines and thus annexing Normandy and Anjou into his royal domains.
Most remarkable was the Angevin Empire which was probably the greatest threat to the King of France, resulting from both the Norman Conquest of England and The Anarchy. The Battle of Bouvines was probably the most important event in the collapse of this so-called empire. In addition to defeating John of England, Philip Augustus founded the Sorbonne and made Paris a city of scholars. His grandson Saint Louis inflicted further defeats on the Angevins during the Saintonge War and also supported new forms of art such as Gothic architecture and his Sainte-Chapelle became a very famous gothic building, he is also credited for the Morgan Bible. While the French kings were struggling against the Plantagenets the Church called for the Albigensian Crusade. Southern France was then largely absorbed in the royal domains.
Saint Louis. He saw France's cultural expansion in the Western Christian world.
It can be said that France became a truly centralised kingdom under Saint Louis, who initiated several administrative reforms. More administrative reforms were made by Philip the Fair. This king was responsible for the end of the Templars, signed the Auld Alliance, and established the Parlement of Paris. Philip IV was so powerful that he could name popes and emperors, unlike the early Capetians. The papacy was moved to Avignon and all the contemporary popes were French such as Philip IV's puppet: Bertrand de Goth.
The tensions between the Houses of Anjou and Capet climaxed during the so-called Hundred Years' War (actually several distinct wars) when the English descendants of the former claimed the throne of France from the Valois. This was also the time of the Black Death as well as several civil wars. The French population suffered very much from these wars. It has been argued that the difficult conditions the French population suffered during the Hundred Years' War awakened French nationalism, a nationalism represented by Joan of Arc. Although this is debatable, the Hundred Years War is remembered more as a Franco-English war than as a succession of feudal struggles. During this war, France evolved politically and militarily. Although a Franco-Scottish army was successful at Baugé, the humiliating defeats of Poitiers and Agincourt forced the French nobility to realise they could not stand just as armoured knights without an organised army. Charles VII established the first French standing army, the Compagnies d'ordonnance, and defeated the English once at Patay and again, using canons, at Formigny. The Battle of Châtillon was regarded as the last engagement of this "war", yet Calais remained under English and French control.
Early Modern France (1453-1789)
Main article: Early Modern France
France evolved from a feudal country to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy that relied on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the established Church. France engaged in the long Italian Wars (1494-1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. Francis I faced powerful foes, and he was captured at Pavia. The French monarchy then sought for allies and found one in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa captured Nice on 5 August 1543 and handed it down to Francis I. These times also gave birth to the Protestant Reformation, and John Calvin and his reformed doctrine challenged the power of the Catholic Church in France. During the 16th century, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs were the dominant power in Europe. In addition to Spain and Austria, they controlled a number of kingdoms and duchies across Europe. Charles Quint, as Count of Burgundy, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon, Castile and Germany (among many other titles) encircled France. The Spanish Tercio was used with great success against French knights and remained undefeated for a long time. Finally on January 7, 1558 the Duke of Guise seized Calais from the English.
Despite the challenge to French power posed by the Habsburgs, French became the preferred language of Europe's aristocracy. Charles Quint (born in 1500) said this about languages:
“
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
”
Because of its international status, there was a desire to regulate the French language. Several reforms of the French language worked to uniformise it. The Renaissance writer François Rabelais (probably born in 1494) helped to shape the French language as a literary language, Rabelais' French is characterised by the re-introduction of Latin and Greek words. Jacques Peletier du Mans (born 1517) was one of the scholars that reformed the French language. He improved Nicolas Chuquet's long scale system by adding names for intermediate numbers (milliards instead of thousand million, etc...). During the 16th century the French kingdom also established colonies began to claim North American territories. Jacques Cartier was one of the great explorers who ventured deep into American territories during the 16th century. The largest group of French colonies became known as New France, and several cities such as Quebec City, Montreal, Detroit and New Orleans were founded by the French.
Religious conflicts
Main article: Wars of Religionand
Main article: Thirty Years War
Henry IV of France, King of France and Navarre, was the first French Bourbon king.
Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1562), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. The War of Religions culminated in the War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III assassinated Henry de Guise, leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic league, and the king was murdered in return. Following this war Henry III of Navarre became king of France as Henry IV and enforced the Edict of Nantes (1598). Religious conflicts resumed under Louis XIII when Cardinal de Richelieu forced the Protestants to disarm their army and fortresses. This conflict ended in the Siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628), in which Protestants and their English supporters were defeated. The following Peace of Alais confirmed religious freedom yet dismantled the Protestant defences. This was also a time of philosophy. René Descartes sought answers to philosophical questions through the use of logic and reason and formulated what would be called Cartesian Dualism in 1641.
The religious conflicts that plagued France also ravaged the Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire. The Thirty Years' War eroded the power of the Catholic Habsburgs. Although Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful chief minister of France, had previously mauled the Protestants, he joined this war on their side in 1636. Imperial Habsburg forces invaded France, ravaged Champagne, and nearly threatened Paris. Richelieu died in 1642 and was replaced by Mazarin, while Louis XIII died one year later and was succeeded by Louis XIV. France was served by some very efficient commanders such as Louis II de Bourbon and Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne. The French forces won a decisive victory at Rocroi (1643), and the Spanish army was decimated; the Tercio was broken. The Truce of Ulm (1647) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) brought an end to the war. But some challenges remained. France was hit by civil unrest known as the Fronde which in turn evolved into the Franco-Spanish War in 1653. Louis II de Bourbon joined the Spanish army this time but was inflicted a severe defeat at Dunkirk (1658) by Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne. The terms for the peace inflicted upon the Spanish kingdoms in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) were harsh, as France annexed Northern Catalonia.
Louis XIV
Louis XIV, the "Sun King"
The Sun King wanted to be remembered as a patron of the arts, like his ancestor Louis IX. He invited Jean-Baptiste Lully to establish the French opera. A tumultuous friendship was established between Lully and Molière. Jules Hardouin Mansart became France's most important architect of the time. Louis XIV's long reign saw France involved in many wars that drained its treasury. His reign began during the Thirty Years' War and during the Franco-Spanish war. His military architect, Vauban, became famous for his pentagonal fortresses, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert supported the royal spending as much as possible. France fought the War of Devolution against Spain in 1667. France's defeat Spain and invasion of the Spanish Netherlands alarmed England and Sweden. With the Dutch Republic they formed the Triple Alliance to check Louis XIV's expansion. Louis II de Bourbon had captured Franche-Comté, but in face of an indefensible position, Louis XIV agreed to a peace at Aachen. Under its terms, Louis XIV did not annex Franche-Comté but did gain Lille.
Peace was fragile, and war broke out again between France and the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678). Louis XIV asked for the Dutch Republic to resume war against the Spanish Netherlands, but the republic refused. France attacked the Dutch Republic and was joined by England in this conflict. Through deliberate floods, the French invasion of the Dutch Republic was brought to a halt. The Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter inflicted a few strategic defeats on the Anglo-French naval alliance and forced England to retire from the war in (1674). Because the Netherlands could not resist eternally, it agreed to peace in the Treaties of Nijmegen, according to which France would annex France-Comté and acquired further concessions in the Spanish Netherlands. On 6 May 1682, the royal court moved to the Palace of Versailles, which Louis XIV had greatly expanded. Peace, once again, did not last, and war between France and Spain resumed once again. The War of the Reunions broke out (1683-1684), and once again Spain, with its ally the Holy Roman Empire, was easily defeated. Meanwhile, in October 1685 Louis signed the Edict of Fontainebleau ordering the destruction of all Protestant churches and schools in France. Its immediate consequence was a large Protestant exodus from France.
France would soon be involved into another war, the War of the Grand Alliance. This time the threatre was not only in Europe but also in North America. Although the war was long and difficult, its results were inconclusive. The Treaty of Ryswick confirmed French sovereignty over Alsace yet rejected its claims to Luxembourg. Louis also had to evacuate Catalonia and the Palatinate. This peace was considered a truce by all sides, thus war was to start again. In 1701 the War of the Spanish Succession began. The Bourbon Philip of Anjou was designated heir to the throne of Spain. The Habsburg Emperor Leopold opposed a Bourbon succession, because of the power that such a succession would bring to the Bourbon rulers of France. England and the Dutch Republic joined Leopold against Louis XIV and Philip of Anjou. The allied forces were led by John Churchill and by Prince Eugene of Savoy. They achieved resounding defeats of the French army, yet after Malplaquet, a Pyrrhic victory, they had lost too many men to continue the war. Led by Villars the French forces recovered much of the ground they had lost in battles such as Denain. Finally, a compromise was agreed on at Ultrecht in 1713. Philip of Anjou was confirmed as Philip V, king of Spain, but he was barred from inheriting France.
Colonial struggles and the dawn of the revolution
Louis XIV died in 1714 of gangrene. In 1718 France was, once again, at war as Philip II of Orleans's regency joined the War of the Quadruple Alliance against Spain. King Philip V of Spain had to withdraw from the conflict confronted with the reality that Spain was no longer a great power of Europe. Under Fleury's administration, peace was maintained as much as possible. However, in 1733 another war broke in central Europe, this time about the Polish succession, and France joined the war against the Austrian Empire. This time there was no invasion of the Netherlands, and Britain remained neutral. As a consequence, Austria was left alone against a Franco-Spanish alliance and faced a military disaster. Peace was setted in the Treaty of Vienna (1738), according to which France would annex, through inheritance, the Duchy of Lorraine. Two years later war broke out over the Austrian succession, and France seized the opportunity to join the conflict. The war played out in North America and India as well as Europe, and inconclusive terms were agreed to in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). Once again, no one regarded this as a peace but rather as a mere truce. Prussia was then becoming a new threat as it had gained substantial territory from Austria. This led to the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, in which the alliances seen during the previous war were mostly inverted. France was now allied to Austria and Russia while Britain was now allied to Prussia. In the North American theatre, France was allied with various Indian peoples during the Seven Years War and, despite a temporary success at the battles of the Great Meadows and Monongahela, French forces were defeated at the disastrous Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec. In Europe, Russia was on the verge of crushing Prussia, and the Anglo-Prussian alliance was saved by The miracle of the House of Brandenburg, while the French suffered naval defeats against British fleets at Lagos and Quiberon Bay. Finally peace was concluded in the Treaty of Paris (1763), and France lost most of its North American empire. In 1768 the French Kingdom bought Corsica from Genoa.
Lord Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown to American and French allies.
Having lost its colonial empire, France saw a good opportunity for revenge against Britain during the American Revolutionary War. Spain also joined the war on the American side but suffered a strong naval defeat at Cape St. Vincent. Admiral de Grasse defeated a British fleet at Chesapeake Bay while Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur and Gilbert du Motier joined American forces in defeating the British at Yorktown. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Paris (1783), under which and Britain lost its former American colonies.
While the state was expanded yet broke new ideas on the role of the king and the powers of the state, Charles de Secondat described the separation of powers. Many philosophers became well influential among the French intellectual class such as: Voltaire, Denis Diderot and most importantly Jean-Jacques Rousseau with The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right. Louis XVI commissioned a unified system of units for his kingdom, French scientists such as Antoine Lavoisier then worked on create a scientific system to replace the anarchic ones used previously. Lavoisier also worked on the Conservation of mass and recognised Oxygen and Hydrogen.
The Revolution
Main article: French Revolution
Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789
On May 28, 1789, the Abbot Sieyès moved that the Third Estate proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so, and then voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly. Tensions finally caused the Third Estate to pronounce the Tennis Court Oath on June 20 1789 after finding the door to their chamber locked and guarded. They were joined by some members of the second and first estates in the conflict against the king. On July 14, 1789, after four hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor and several of his guards. Gilbert du Motier, hero of the American independence, took command of the national guard and the king was forced to recognise the Tricolour Cockade. Although peace was found several nobles did not regard the new order as acceptable and migrated to push neighbouring kingdoms to war against the new rule. Because of this new period of unstability the state was struck by the Great Fear, the two classes were scared of each other. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen tried to give everyone egual rights and France's administrative map was totally changed, moving from provinces to départements. Rising conflicts between two factions brought even more unstability to the already weak regime as some wanted a constitutional monarchy and some wanted a republic. During riots Gilbert du Motier ordered the National Guard to open fire on the protesting crowd. Republican publications were censored afterward. In the Declaration of Pillnitz outsiders such as: Emperor Leopold II, Count Charles of Artois and King William II of Prussia made Louis XVI's cause theirs. These noblemen also required the assembly to be dissolved through threats of war but instead of cowing the French institutions this infuriated them. The borderlines were militarised as a consequence. Under the Constitution of 1791 the solution of a constitutional monarchy was adopted and the king supported a war against Austria in order to increase his popularity starting the long French Revolutionary Wars. On the night of the 10th of August the Jacobins, who had mainly opposed the war, suspended the monarchy. With the Prussian army entering France more doubts raised against the aristocracy, these tensions climaxed during the September Massacres. After the first great victory of the French revolutionary troops at the battle of Valmy on 1792 September 20 the French First Republic was proclaimed the day after on 1792 September 21. The French Republican Calendar was enforced. The Brunswick Manifesto threatened once more the French population from Austrian (Imperial) and Prussian attacks if royalist advance in France was still opposed, following this threat Louis XVI was suspected of treason and was guillotined on 21 January 1793. Spain, Naples, Great-Britain and The Netherlands joined Austria and Prussia in their war against France. The Republican government was radicalised after a diplomatic coup from the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror was now reality. Royalist invading forces were defeated at Toulon in 1793, leaving the French republican forces in an offensive position and granting a young officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, a certain fame. Following their victory at Fleurus the Republicans occupied Belgium and the Rhineland. An invasion of the Netherlands established the puppet Batavian Republic. Finally a peace agreement was found between France, Spain and Prussia in 1795 at Basel, while France withdrew its forces from occupied parts of the eastern Rhine and Northern Spain it remained in control of all the western bank of the Rhine. Sardinia, Austria and Britain were still at war against France and General Napoleon Bonaparte was highly successful against them as he captured Milan and defeated several Austrian armies sent to relieve Mantua from a siege he led. Finally Mantua fell and Napoleon invaded Tyrol while General Hoche was invading Germany, Austria was compelled to sign the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 losing Belgium to France. The republican government also enforced the Système International d'Unités, commissioned by Louis XVI, and which became known as the Metric System. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb and André-Marie Ampère's works on electricity and electromagnetism were also recognised and their units are integrated in the Metric System.
The Napoleonic Era
Napoleon on his Imperial throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
During the War of the First Coalition the Directoire had replaced the National Convention. Five directors then ruled France. As Great-Britain was still at war with France a plan was made to take Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, allied to Great-Britain. This was Napoleon's idea and the Directoire agreed to the plan in order to send the popular general away from the mainland. Napoleon captured Malta from the Knights of Saint John on the way to Egypt. The French army met Ottoman forces during the Battle of the Pyramids and defeated them. While the land campaign was so far a success, the British fleet, led by Admiral Nelson, managed to destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Hearing of the destruction of the French fleet, the Ottoman Empire gathered armies to attack Napoleon in Egypt, and Napoleon adopted a policy of attack again. An invasion of Syria was planned but failed during the Siege of Acre. Napoleon had to come back to the mainland leaving a significant part of his army behind. These men were supposed to be given honourable term by the British forces yet Admiral Keith decided to attack them anyway with a Mameluk force, although this force was defeated at Heliopolis in March 1800. Disease had hit the French troops to such a point they had to surrender. The Rosetta Stone was discovered during this campaign and Champollion translated it.
When Napoleon came back to France the Directoire was threatened by the Second Coalition. Royalists and their allies still dreamed of putting back the monarchy to power while the Prussian and Austrian crowns did not accept their territorial losses during the previous war. The Russian army expelled the French one from Italy in battles such as Cassano while the Austrian army defeated the French one in Switzerland at Stockach and Zurich. Napoleon then seized power through a coup and established the Consulate in 1799. The Austrian army was defeated at Marengo in 1800 and again at Hohenlinden. While on sea Admiral Louis-René Levassor de Latouche Tréville had some success at Boulogne against a British fleet, Admiral Nelson would destroy an anchored Danish fleet at Copenhagen. The Second Coalition was beaten and peace was settled in two distinct treaties: The Treaty of Lunéville and the Treaty of Amiens. In 1803 Napoleon sold French Louisiana to the American government, a territory he considered indefensible.
On 21 March 1804 the Napoleonic Code was applied over all the territory and on may 18 Napoleon was titled Emperor by the senate thus founding the French Empire. Technically Napoleon's rule was constitutional, although autocratic it was much more advanced than other European monarchies of the time. The proclamation of the French Empire was met by the Third Coalition. The French army was renamed the Grande Armée in 1805 and Napoleon used propaganda and nationalism to control the French population. The French army achieved a resounding victory at Ulm where an entire Austrian army was captured. A Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at Trafalgar and all plan to invade Britain were then made impossible. Despite this naval defeat it was on ground battle that this war would be won, Napoleon inflicted the Austrian and Russian Empires one of their greatest defeat at Austerlitz destroying the third coalition. The peace was settled in the Treaty of Pressburg, the Austrian Empire lost the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Confederation of the Rhine was created by Napoleon over former Austrian territories.
The destruction of the Holy Roman Empire and the dramatic Austrian defeat caused Prussia to join Great-Britain and Russia. Thus forming the Fourth Coalition. They were joined by other allies but then again the French Empire was not alone since it now had a complex network of allies and submitted states. Largely outnumbered the Prussian army was crushed at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, Napoleon captured Berlin and went as far as Eastern Prussia. There the Russian Empire was defeated at the Battle of Friedland. Peace was dictated in the Treaties of Tilsit in which Russia had to join the Continental System and Prussia handed down half of its territories to France.
Freed from his obligation to the east Napoleon then went back to the west as the French Empire was still at war with Britain. Only two countries remained neutral in the war: Sweden and Portugal, and Napoleon then looked toward the latter. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau a Franco-Spanish alliance against Portugal was sealed as Spain eyed Portuguese territories. French armies entering Spain in order to attack Portugal but then seized Spanish forteresses and took over the kingdom by surprise, Joseph Bonaparte was made King of Spain after Charles IV's abdication. This occupation of the Iberian peninsula fueled nationalism and soon Spanish and Portuguese would fight the French using guerillas and defeated the French forces at the Battle of Bailén. Great-Britain send a short lived ground support to Portugal and French forces evacuated Portugal as defined in the Convention of Sintra follow the Battle of Vimeiro. France was only controlling Catalonia and Navarre and could have been definitely expelled from the Iberian peninsula had the Spanish armies attacked again but it did not. Another attack was launched on Spain, led by Napoleon himself, and was described as "an avalanche of fire and steel." Although the French Empire was no longer regarded as invincible by European powers. In 1808 Austria formed the War of the Fifth Coalition in order to break down the French Empire. The Austrian Empire defeated the French one at Aspern-Essling yet was beaten at Wagram while the Polish allies defeated the Austrian Empire at Raszyn. Although not as decisive as the previous Austrian defeats the peace treaty caused Austria to lose a large amount of territories, reducing it even more.
Napoleon Bonaparte leaving Russia after a disastrous campaign.
In 1812 it was with Russia that war broke, engaging Napoleon in the disastrous Patriotic War. Napoleon assembled the largest army Europe had ever seen, including toops from all submitted states, to invade Russia who just left the continental system and was gathering an army on the Polish frontier. Following the Battle of Borodino the Grande Armée entered and captured Moscow, just to find it burned to the ground by a scorched earth Russian warfare. Although there still were battles such as Maloyaroslavets the Napoleonic army left Russia decimated by the Russian winter and scorched earth warfare. On the Spanish front the French troops were defeated at Vitoria and than at the Battle of the Pyrenees. While facing a bigger and bigger guerilla the French troops definitely evacuated Spain. Being defeated on these two fronts gave all states controlled and previously defeated by Napoleon a good opportunity to strike him back. The Sixth Coalition was formed and the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine switched side, finally opposing Napoleon. Napoleon was largely defeated in the Battle of the Nations and was overwhelmed by much larger armies during the Six Days Campaign, although because of the much larger amount of casualties suffered by the allies in the campaign the Six Days are often considered a tactical masterpiece.
Napoleon abdicated on April 6 1814, Napoleon was exiled to Elba. The Congress of Vienna, due to a Conservative Order, tried to undo the political changes from to the wars thus attempting to save peace. The last parts of the Napoleonic Wars were the Hundred Days ending by his final defeat at Waterloo. The monarchy was subsequently restored and Louis XVIII became king.
The Restored Monarchy and the Second Empire
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French
This period of time is called the Bourbon Restoration and was marked by conflicts between reactionaries Ultra-royalists and more liberal movements. On 12 June 1830 Polignac, King Charles X's minister, took profit of the Algerian Dey's weakness to invade Algeria and establish a French rule in Algeria. The news of the fall of Algiers had barely reached Paris that Charles X was deposed for King Louis-Philippe during the July Revolution. Louis-Philippe's "July Monarchy" (1830–1848) is generally seen as a period during which the haute bourgeoisie was dominant. Anarchism began to take roots in France and that was represented by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. To honour the victim of the July Revolution Hector Berlioz composed a Requiem, he also worked on the French anthem La Marseillaise. In 1838 the French government declared war on Mexico after a French pastry cook in Mexico accused Mexican officers of looting his shop. The Mexican government was defeated in that short Pastry War. Finally the last King of France abdicated and the French Second Republic was proclaimed, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president and proclaimed himself President for Life following a coup that was confirmed and accepted in a dubious referendum. Napoleon III of France took the imperial title from 1852 to 1870. The era saw great industrialization, urbanization (including the massive rebuilding of Paris by Baron Haussmann) and economic growth, but Napoleon III's foreign policies would not be so successful. In 1859 the Second Italian War of Independence broke between Italian states and Austria, the Second French Empire joined the war on the Italian side which was concluded by an Austrian defeat at Solferino. In return of this intervention the French government acquired definitely the city of Nice while on March 1860 Savoy was annexed through similar means. In 1861 Napoleon III largely supported Maxililian in his claim over Mexico, a move that was also supported by Britain and Spain but condemned by the USA. This led to the French intervention in Mexico which turned out to be a failure. While France was negotiating with The Netherlands about purchasing Luxembourg the Prussian Kingdom threatened the French government with war. This came as a shock to French diplomats as there previously was an agreement between the Prussian and French governments about Luxembourg. Napoleon III suffered stronger and stronger criticism from Republicans like Jules Favre and his position seemed more fragile with the passage of time. The Second Empire joined the Crimean War which opposed France and Britain to the Russian Empire and the Russian forces were decisively defeated at Sevastopol in 1855 and at Inkerman. In 1856 France joined the Second Opium War on the British side against China, a missionary's murder was used as a pretext to take interests in southwest Asia in the Treaty of Tientsin.
Rising tensions about a possible Prussian succession in Spain raised the scale of animosity between the two states and finally the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) broke. German Nationalism united the German states against Napoleon III with the exception of Austria. Overwhelmed, the French Empire was defeated decisively at Metz and Sedan. The last straw was the Siege of Paris and the newly formed German Empire subsequently annexed Alsace-Lorraine in the Treaty of Frankfurt.
The Third Republic and the Belle Epoque
Main article: French Third Republic
The French legislature established the Third Republic which was to last until the military defeat of 1940 (longer than any government in France since the Revolution). The birth of the republic saw France occupied by foreign troops, the capital in a popular socialist insurection — the Paris Commune (which was violently repressed by Adolphe Thiers) — and two provinces (Alsace-Lorraine) annexed to Germany. Feelings of national guilt and a desire for vengeance ("revanchism") would be major preoccupations of the French throughout the next half century. The repression of the commune was bloody. Hundreds were executed in front of the Communards' Wall in the Père Lachaise cemetery, while thousands of others were marched to Versailles for trials. The number killed during La Semaine Sanglante (The Bloody Week) can never be established for certain but the best estimates are 30,000 dead, many more wounded, and perhaps as many as 50,000 later executed or imprisoned; 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia. Thousands of them fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States.
Beside this defeat, the Republican movement also had to confront the counterrevolutionaries who rejected the legacy of the 1789 Revolution. Both the Legitimist and the Orleanist royalists rejected republicanism, which they saw as an extension of modernity and atheism, breaking with France's traditions. This lasted until at least the 16 May 1877 crisis, which finally led to the resignation of royalist Marshal MacMahon in January 1879. The death of Henri, comte de Chambord in 1883, who, as the grandson of Charles X, had refused to abandon the fleur-de-lys and the white flag, thus jeopardizing the alliance between Legitimists and Orleanists, convinced many of the remaining Orleanists to rally themselves to the Republic, as Adolphe Thiers had already done. The vast majority of the Legitimists abandoned the political arena or became marginalised. Some of them founded Action Française in 1898, during the Dreyfus Affair, which became an influent movement through-out the 1930s, in particular among the intellectuals of Paris' Quartier Latin. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII's encyclic Rerum Novarum legitimised to the Social Catholic movement, which in France could be traced back to Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais' efforts under the July Monarchy.
The initial republic was in effect led by pro-royalists, but republicans (the "Radicals") and bonapartists scrambled for power. The period from 1879–1899 saw power come into the hands of moderate republicans and former "radicals" (around Léon Gambetta); these were called the "Opportunists". The newly found Republican control on the Republic allowed the vote of the 1881 and 1882 Jules Ferry laws on a free, mandatory and laic public education.
The moderates however became deeply divided over the Dreyfus Affair, and this allowed the Radicals to eventually gain power from 1899 until the Great War. During this period, crises like the potential "Boulangist" coup d'état (see Georges Boulanger) in 1889, showed the fragility of the republic. The Radicals' policies on education (suppression of local languages, compulsory education), mandatory military service, and control of the working classes eliminated internal dissent and regionalisms, while their participation in the Scramble for Africa and in the acquiring of overseas possessions (such as French Indochina) created myths of French greatness. Both of these processes transformed a country of regionalisms into a modern nation state. Conflicts between the Chinese Emperor and the French Republic over Indochina climaxed during the Sino-French War, Admiral Courbet destroyed the Chinese fleet anchored at Foochow. French sovereignty over Tonkin and Annam was confirmed.
In an effort to isolate Germany, France went to great pains to woo Russia and the United Kingdom to its side, first by means of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, then the 1904 Entente Cordiale with the U.K, and finally, with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907 this became the Triple Entente, which eventually led Russia and the UK to enter World War I as Allies.
Distrust of Germany, faith in the army and native French anti-semitism combined to make the Dreyfus Affair (the unjust trial and condemnation of a Jewish military officer for treason) a political scandal of the utmost gravity. The nation was divided between "dreyfusards" and "anti-dreyfusards" and far-right Catholic agitators inflamed the situation even when proofs of Dreyfus' innocence came to light. The writer Emile Zola published an impassioned editorial on the injustice, and was himself condemned by the government for libel. Once Dreyfus was finally pardoned, the progressive legislature enacted the 1905 laws on laïcité which created a complete separation of church and state and stripped churches of most of their property rights.
Eiffel Tower under construction in July 1888.
The period and the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century is often termed the belle époque. Although associated with cultural innovations and popular amusements (cabaret, cancan, the cinema, new art forms such as Impressionism and Art Nouveau), France was nevertheless a nation divided internally on notions of religion, class, regionalisms and money, and on the international front France came repeatedly to the brink of war with the other imperial powers, including Great Britain (the Fashoda Incident). World War I was inevitable, but its human and financial costs would be catastrophic for the French.
In 1889 the Exposition Universelle took place in Paris and the Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary gate to the fair. Meant to last only a few decades the tower was never removed and became France's most iconic landmark.
History of England
England is the largest and most populous of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. The division dates from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century. The territory of England has been politically united since the 10th century. This article concerns that territory. However, before the 10th century and after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603, it becomes less convenient to distinguish Scottish and Welsh from English history since the union of these nations with England.
England before the English
Main site: Prehistoric Britain, Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain
Stonehenge, thought to have been erected c.2000-2500BC
Archaeological evidence indicates that what is now southern England was colonized by humans long before the rest of the British Isles due to its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, although cultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC. Later writers such as Pliny the Elder (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern England but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there. Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of, what is now, southern England and northern Gaul and noted that the various tribes of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours. Julius Caesar visited southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of what is now southern England was extremely large and shared much in common with the other barbarian tribes on the continent. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was to become England.
From the Earliest Pre-history up until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britaine's indigenous population was relatively stable. There is ongoing fierce academic debate about when and how that population began speaking Celtic languages (see the article on Celts for a much more in depth discussion), but at least by the time of Julius Ceaser's invasion, the indigenous population of what is now England was speaking a Celtic Language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Gaelic languages. The Romans set up a series of colonies in what is now England and - despite several notable rebellions - held onto the southern part of the island until about 410. The Northern boundaries of Roman control are the precursers of the modern boundaries between modern England and its Celtic neighbors - Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall.
Surprisingly few historical sources describe Roman Britain. For example, we have only one sentence describing the reasons for the construction of Hadrian's Wall. The Claudian invasion itself is well attested and Tacitus included the uprising of Boudica, or "Boadicea", in 61 AD in his history. Following the end of the 1st century, however, Roman historians only mention fragments of information from the distant province. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 5th century Roman influence had all but disappeared, opening the way for new power struggles between "Romanized" Britons, the Gaelic and Welsh speaking populations that had remained outside the areas of Roman control, and new waves of Germanic invaders from the continent.
History
Main article: History of Anglo-Saxon England
In the wake of the Romans, who had abandoned the south of the island by about 410 in order to concentrate on difficulties closer to home, present day England was progressively settled by successive and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen.
The prevailing view is that waves of Germanic people, Jutes together with larger numbers of Frisians, Saxons from north-western Germany and Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein - commonly known as Anglo-Saxons - who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe, invaded Britain in the mid 5th century and again around the middle of the 6th century. They came under military leaders and settled at first on the eastern shores. They are believed to have fought their way westward, looking for more land to cultivate, taking lowland and leaving less desirable lands in the hills to the Celtic Britons.
Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans believe that the Saxons did not sweep away the entire population of the Celtic Britons in the areas they overran, as was supposed by 19th century historians. Population estimates based on the size and density of settlements put Britain's population at about 3.5 million by the time Romans invaded in A.D. 43. Some historians now believe subsequent invaders from mainland Europe had little genetic impact on the British. The notion that large-scale migrations caused drastic change in early Britain has been widely discredited, according to the view of Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University, England.
For the English, their defining period was the arrival of Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Some researchers suggest this invasion may have consisted of as few as 10,000 to 25,000 people — not enough to displace existing inhabitants. However, the latest genetic studies of the modern British population suggests an intermediate situation, with around 50% of Britons remaining in England, the figure increasing from east to west [1]. The reason for this relatively high ratio of Saxons in the modern population may be due to a higher reproductive rate (Proc Royal Soc B 2006).
Analysis of human remains unearthed at an ancient cemetery near Abingdon, England, indicates that Saxon immigrants and native Britons lived side-by-side. David Miles, research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology has said: "Probably what we're dealing with is a majority of British people who were dominated politically by a new elite. ... They were swamped culturally but not genetically". Simon James writes: "It is actually quite common to observe important cultural change, including adoption of wholly new identities, with little or no biological change to a population".[2]
Increasingly, the Romano-British population (the Britons) was assimilated, a process enabled by a lack of clear unity amongst the British people against a unified armed foe, and the culture pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement (or invasion) of what was later to become known as England is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") Conquest.
In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon (Latin Mons Badonicus, Welsh Mynydd Baddon) possibly at Badbury Rings near the Roman Porchester-Poole road,[citation needed] Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for a long period. While it was a major political and military event of the 5th and 6th centuries in Britain, there is no certainty about who commanded the opposing forces. This victory by the Welsh army made it possible to halt the Saxon invasion and secured a long period of peace for Celtic Britain.
The earliest source does not name the commanders of the opposing forces, but by the 9th century the victory was attributed to King Arthur. The 9th century Historia Brittonum records traditions that name the Romano-British / Celtic leader as Arthur. An old Welsh poem ascribed to Taliesin (who lived in the last half of the 6th century), refers to "the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts… the battle which all men remember". In that sort of society, "chief giver of feasts" implies supreme leader. Gildas writes "ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis ... quique quadragesimus quartus ut novi orditur annus mense iam uno emenso qui et meae nativitatis est", which has been translated in more than one way. It may mean "at/to the year of the siege of Mount Badon ... which happened 44 years and one month ago, and which is [the year] of my birth".
King Maelgwn of Gwynedd was still living when Gildas wrote this, therefore Gildas wrote this on or before 547. This suggests the date 503 or shortly before for the battle. Bede treated this passage as saying that the battle was 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (which he said was in 449). Adding 44 years to 449 gives the date 493 for the battle. Adding 44 years to 447 (when Thanet was conceded to Hengist) gives the date 491 for the battle. Some would argue that Bede's copy of Gildas was much closer to Gildas's time than any extant; however, the age of a manuscript (especially one no longer existing) is no guide to its accuracy. However uncertain the place, date, or participants of this battle may be, it clearly halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for some years.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this battle, but documents a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (Bretwaldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries. Procopius records a story, told to him by a member of a diplomatic delegation from the Franks, including a group of Angles, which included that some Anglo-Saxons and British found their island so crowded that they migrated into northern Gaul to find lands to live on. There are other tales from the mid-6th century about groups of Anglo-Saxons leaving Britain to settle across the English Channel. All of these point to some kind of reversal in the fortunes of the invading Anglo-Saxons.
Archaeological evidence collected from the cemeteries of the pagan Anglo-Saxons suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500. The Anglo-Saxons held the present counties of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and around the Humber; it is clear that the native British controlled everything west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon at Christchurch north to the river Trent, then along the Trent to where it joined the Humber, and north along the river Derwent and then east to the North Sea, and an enclave to the north and west of London, and south of Verulamium (near St. Albans), that stretched west to join with the main frontier. The Britons defending this pocket could securely move their troops along Watling Street to bring reinforcements to London or Verulamium, and thus keep the invaders divided into pockets south of the Weald, in eastern Kent, and in the lands around the Wash.
In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577 between the West Saxons and the Britons, the British people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall, Devon Dorset and Somerset) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons. Deorham is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in Gloucestershire. The battle was promptly followed by the Saxon occupation of three cities: Cirencester (Corinium), probably a provincial capital in the Roman period; Gloucester (Glevum), a former legionary fortress and a colonia; and Bath (Aquae Sulis), a renowned pagan religious centre and spa city. However, their advance southwestward was held up for about a hundred years, until the battle of Peonnam, and was not complete until the 10th century. Though there were some gains towards Wales, it remained largely independent from the Saxons.
The remains of many villas are found in the vicinity of these cities, implying that the area was wealthy as well as relatively sophisticated: it must be inferred that this Saxon advance was a significant blow to the Britons. The battle is also considered by some to be decisive since it drove a land wedge between the Britons of what was to become Wales and those in the southwest peninsula. It has however been objected that, though the battle may have had an impact on large-scale movements, the passage of Welsh-speaking individuals was evidently not impossible: a Welsh genealogy appears to record that, in the 7th century, the descendants of kings of Pengwern founded a dynasty in the Glastonbury region. It would not have been difficult to make such a journey by boat. In fact, archaeology suggests that, although the Anglo-Saxons quickly took over the Cirencester region after the battle, it took some time for them to colonize Bath and Gloucester.
From the 4th century AD, many Britons had migrated across the English Channel from Wales, Cornwall and southern Britain, with their chiefs, soldiers, families, monks and priests, and started to settle and colonize the western part (Armorica) of Gaul (France) where they founded a new nation: Brittany. The immigrant Britons gave their new country its current name and contributed to the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The name "Brittany" (from "Little Britain") arose at this time to distinguish the new Britain from "Great Britain". Brezhoneg (the British language) is still spoken in Brittany in 2006.
Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.
At Dore (now a suburb of the City of Sheffield) Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.
England in 878
After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. One Viking settlement was in York, called Jorvik by the Vikings. Viking rule left significant traces in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing.
The principal legacy left behind in those territories where it is agreed that significant numbers of Britons remained is that of toponyms. Most of the place-names in Cornwall, and some in Cumberland and Westmorland, and in other pockets, are Brythonic in origin, as are the names of most former Romano-British cities, including London, Dorchester, Dover, and Colchester. A few place-name elements, referring to physical features, are thought to be Brythonic in origin, such as bre- and tor for hills, carr for a high rocky place, and coombe for a small deep valley (a rare example of a Brythonic word that had been borrowed into Old English).
Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies suggest that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes but many tribes remained in what was to become England (see C. Capelli et al. 'A Y chromosome census of the British Isles'. Current Biology 13, 979–984, (2003)). Capelli's findings strengthen the research of Steven Bassett of Birmingham University; his work during the 1990s suggests that much of the west Midlands was only very lightly colonised with Anglian and Saxon settlements (though this is not supported by the place-names of the region).
Yet a new study by University College London has shown that the Y Chromosome of most people in the UK has been very much affected by the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. UCL DNA Study. This is probably due to the nature of the Anglo-Saxon invasion - the Saxons being 'ferocious' as Charlemagne (a renowned Warrior King,) noted. But also due to subsequent mixing. ZAK
See also: Hengest, Cerdic of Wessex, Bede, Offa, Egbert of Wessex, Alfred the Great, and Anglo-Saxon Kings
England during the Middle Ages
Main article: Britain in the Middle Ages
Depiction of the Battle of Hastings (1066) on the Bayeux Tapestry
The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William II of Normandy, later styled William I of England, and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.
William ruled over Normandy, then a powerful duchy in France. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Anglo-Norman, in Normandy as well as in England. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.
The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.
Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (so named because of his education—as his older brother William was the heir apparent and thus given the practical training to be king, Henry received the alternate, formal education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.
During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135–1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin The Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).
Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, although his hold on the throne was still uneasy. When Stephen's son and heir apparent Eustace died in 1153 Stephen reached an accommodation with Matilda which allowed her son, Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) to succeed Stephen and in which peace between them was guaranteed.
The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.
The signing of the Magna Carta (1215)
Henry's successor, Richard I "the Lion Heart", was preoccupied with foreign wars, taking part in the Third Crusade and defending his French territories against Philip II of France. His younger brother John, who succeeded him, was not so fortunate; he suffered the loss of Normandy and numerous other French territories. He also managed to antagonise the feudal nobility and leading Church figures to the extent that in 1215, they led an armed rebellion and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which imposed legal limits on the King's personal powers.
John's son, Henry III, was only 9 years old when he became King. His reign was punctuated by numerous rebellions and civil wars, often provoked by incompetence and mismanagement in Government, and Henry's perceived over-reliance on French courtiers (thus restricting the influence of the English nobility). One of these rebellions, led (curiously enough) by a disaffected courtier, Simon de Montfort, was notable for its assembly of one of the earliest precursors to Parliament.
The reign of Edward I (1272–1307) was rather more successful. Edward enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his Government, and summoned the first officially sanctioned Parliaments of England (such as his Model Parliament). He conquered Wales, and attempted to use a succession dispute to gain control of the Kingdom of Scotland, though this developed into a costly and drawn-out military campaign. His son, Edward II, suffered a massive defeat at Bannockburn; but the campaign continued until the early years of Edward III, and was only finally abandoned after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328.
The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and the Hundred Years' War against the French and their Scottish allies. Notable English victories in the Hundred Years' War included Crécy and Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owain Glyndŵr, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.
Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV sowed the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.
See also: English historians in the Middle Ages, List of English chronicles, and Bayeux Tapestry
Tudor England
Main article: Early Modern Britain
The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to date the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.
In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.
King Henry VIII
King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the English Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.
Edward and Mary
Henry VIII had three legitimate children who survived him, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed piety and intelligence, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more conciliatory and the Council accepted him.
When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Elizabeth
The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (radical Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.
The slave trade that established Britain as a major economic power can be attributed to Elizabeth, who granted John Hawkins the permission to commence trading in 1562. The number of Africans transported to England was so great due to the slave trade that by 1596 Elizabeth complained that "several blackamoores have lately been brought into this realm of which kind of people there are already too much here". She tried unsuccessfully to expel them via a Proclamation in 1601.
Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth maintained relative government stability apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, she was effective in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by the English navy commanded by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is, expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout England. During the reign of Elizabeth and shortly afterward, the population grew significantly: from three million in 1564 to nearly five million in 1616.[3]
In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of the monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell affected a "Tudor Revolution" in government, and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign, when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, while she was alive it was very effective.
See also: English Renaissance
The Stuarts and the Civil War
Main article: British Civil War
Elizabeth died in 1603 without leaving any direct heirs. Her closest male Protestant relative was the King of Scots, James VI, of the House of Stuart, who following the Union of the Crowns became King James I of England. King James I & VI as he was styled became the first King of the entire island of Great Britain, though he continued to rule the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland separately. A number of assassination attempts were made on James, notably the Main Plot and Bye Plots of 1603, and most famously, on November 5, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, which was stoked up and served as further fuel for antipathy in England towards the Catholic faith.
Maps of territory held by Royalists (red) and Parliamentarians (green) during the English Civil War (1642–1645).
The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between James' son, Charles I, and Parliament. The defeat of the Royalist army by the New Model Army of Parliament at the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 effectively destroyed the King's forces. Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark. He was eventually handed over to the English Parliament in early 1647. He escaped and the Second English Civil War began, although it was to be only a short conflict, with Parliament quickly securing the country. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles led to his beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London. A republic was declared and Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector in 1653. After he died, his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him in the office, but soon abdicated. The monarchy was restored in 1660, after England entered a period of anomie, with King Charles II returning to London.
King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649
(In 1665, London was swept by a visitation of the plague, and then, in 1666, the capital was swept by the Great Fire, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings).
The death of Charles II in 1685 saw his Catholic brother crowned King James II & VII. England with a Catholic King on the throne was too much for both people and parliament and in 1689 the Dutch Protestant Prince William of Orange was invited to replace King James II in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Despite attempts to secure his reign by force, James was finally defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. However, in parts of Scotland and Ireland Catholics loyal to James remained determined to see him restored to the throne and there followed a series of bloody though unsuccessful uprisings. As a result of these, any failure to pledge loyalty to the victorious King William was severely dealt with. The most infamous example of this policy being the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Jacobite rebellions continued on into the mid-18th century until the son of the last Catholic claimant to the throne, (James III & VIII), mounted a final campaign in 1745. The Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of legend, were resoundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Colonial England
In 1607 England built an establishment in Virginia (Jamestown). This was the beginning of English colonization. Many English settled then in North America for religious or economic reasons. The English merchants holding plantations in the warm southern parts of America then resorted rather quickly to the slavery of Native Americans and imported Africans in order to cultivate their plantations and sell raw material (particularly cotton and tobacco) in Europe. The English merchants involved in colonization accrued fortunes equal to those of great aristocratic landowners in England, and their money, which fueled the rise of the middle class, permanently altered the balance of political power.
The Industrial Revolution
Main article: Economic history of Britain
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangements), crime, and social deprivation.
The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.
Recent history
Main article: History of the United Kingdom
The Acts of Union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 saw the dissolution of both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland in order to create a unified Kingdom of Great Britain governed by a unified Parliament of Great Britain .
The Act of Union of 1800 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process and from 1 January 1801 created a new state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland to form a single political entity.
Therefore, since 1707 England, while ceasing to exist as an independent political entity, has remained highly dominant in what is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Due to her geographic size and large population, the dominant political and economic influence in the UK stems from England. London has remained the capital city of the UK and has built upon its status as the economic and political centre of the UK. It is also one of the world's great cities.
During the early 19th century, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.
Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter.
London during The Blitz in World War II
The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.
The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
England bore the full brunt of German bombing during World War II, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, and while internationally the relative wealth and power of Britain has faded, England still remains the dominant partner within the UK.
During 1999 the UK Government policy of devolution to some of the UK constituent countries saw the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament and the establishment of the Welsh Assembly. (The Northern Ireland Assembly is also due to be reconvened on May 8, 2007). There is no English equivalent of home rule and this in part is a reflection of the dominance English affairs have played within the proceedings of the UK parliament.
England before the English
Main site: Prehistoric Britain, Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain
Stonehenge, thought to have been erected c.2000-2500BC
Archaeological evidence indicates that what is now southern England was colonized by humans long before the rest of the British Isles due to its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, although cultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC. Later writers such as Pliny the Elder (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern England but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there. Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of, what is now, southern England and northern Gaul and noted that the various tribes of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours. Julius Caesar visited southern Britain in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of what is now southern England was extremely large and shared much in common with the other barbarian tribes on the continent. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians have provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was to become England.
From the Earliest Pre-history up until the Roman Conquest of Britain, Britaine's indigenous population was relatively stable. There is ongoing fierce academic debate about when and how that population began speaking Celtic languages (see the article on Celts for a much more in depth discussion), but at least by the time of Julius Ceaser's invasion, the indigenous population of what is now England was speaking a Celtic Language generally thought to be the forerunner of the modern Gaelic languages. The Romans set up a series of colonies in what is now England and - despite several notable rebellions - held onto the southern part of the island until about 410. The Northern boundaries of Roman control are the precursers of the modern boundaries between modern England and its Celtic neighbors - Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall.
Surprisingly few historical sources describe Roman Britain. For example, we have only one sentence describing the reasons for the construction of Hadrian's Wall. The Claudian invasion itself is well attested and Tacitus included the uprising of Boudica, or "Boadicea", in 61 AD in his history. Following the end of the 1st century, however, Roman historians only mention fragments of information from the distant province. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 5th century Roman influence had all but disappeared, opening the way for new power struggles between "Romanized" Britons, the Gaelic and Welsh speaking populations that had remained outside the areas of Roman control, and new waves of Germanic invaders from the continent.
History
Main article: History of Anglo-Saxon England
In the wake of the Romans, who had abandoned the south of the island by about 410 in order to concentrate on difficulties closer to home, present day England was progressively settled by successive and often complementary waves of Germanic tribesmen.
The prevailing view is that waves of Germanic people, Jutes together with larger numbers of Frisians, Saxons from north-western Germany and Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein - commonly known as Anglo-Saxons - who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe, invaded Britain in the mid 5th century and again around the middle of the 6th century. They came under military leaders and settled at first on the eastern shores. They are believed to have fought their way westward, looking for more land to cultivate, taking lowland and leaving less desirable lands in the hills to the Celtic Britons.
Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans believe that the Saxons did not sweep away the entire population of the Celtic Britons in the areas they overran, as was supposed by 19th century historians. Population estimates based on the size and density of settlements put Britain's population at about 3.5 million by the time Romans invaded in A.D. 43. Some historians now believe subsequent invaders from mainland Europe had little genetic impact on the British. The notion that large-scale migrations caused drastic change in early Britain has been widely discredited, according to the view of Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University, England.
For the English, their defining period was the arrival of Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Some researchers suggest this invasion may have consisted of as few as 10,000 to 25,000 people — not enough to displace existing inhabitants. However, the latest genetic studies of the modern British population suggests an intermediate situation, with around 50% of Britons remaining in England, the figure increasing from east to west [1]. The reason for this relatively high ratio of Saxons in the modern population may be due to a higher reproductive rate (Proc Royal Soc B 2006).
Analysis of human remains unearthed at an ancient cemetery near Abingdon, England, indicates that Saxon immigrants and native Britons lived side-by-side. David Miles, research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology has said: "Probably what we're dealing with is a majority of British people who were dominated politically by a new elite. ... They were swamped culturally but not genetically". Simon James writes: "It is actually quite common to observe important cultural change, including adoption of wholly new identities, with little or no biological change to a population".[2]
Increasingly, the Romano-British population (the Britons) was assimilated, a process enabled by a lack of clear unity amongst the British people against a unified armed foe, and the culture pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement (or invasion) of what was later to become known as England is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") Conquest.
In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon (Latin Mons Badonicus, Welsh Mynydd Baddon) possibly at Badbury Rings near the Roman Porchester-Poole road,[citation needed] Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for a long period. While it was a major political and military event of the 5th and 6th centuries in Britain, there is no certainty about who commanded the opposing forces. This victory by the Welsh army made it possible to halt the Saxon invasion and secured a long period of peace for Celtic Britain.
The earliest source does not name the commanders of the opposing forces, but by the 9th century the victory was attributed to King Arthur. The 9th century Historia Brittonum records traditions that name the Romano-British / Celtic leader as Arthur. An old Welsh poem ascribed to Taliesin (who lived in the last half of the 6th century), refers to "the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts… the battle which all men remember". In that sort of society, "chief giver of feasts" implies supreme leader. Gildas writes "ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis ... quique quadragesimus quartus ut novi orditur annus mense iam uno emenso qui et meae nativitatis est", which has been translated in more than one way. It may mean "at/to the year of the siege of Mount Badon ... which happened 44 years and one month ago, and which is [the year] of my birth".
King Maelgwn of Gwynedd was still living when Gildas wrote this, therefore Gildas wrote this on or before 547. This suggests the date 503 or shortly before for the battle. Bede treated this passage as saying that the battle was 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (which he said was in 449). Adding 44 years to 449 gives the date 493 for the battle. Adding 44 years to 447 (when Thanet was conceded to Hengist) gives the date 491 for the battle. Some would argue that Bede's copy of Gildas was much closer to Gildas's time than any extant; however, the age of a manuscript (especially one no longer existing) is no guide to its accuracy. However uncertain the place, date, or participants of this battle may be, it clearly halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for some years.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this battle, but documents a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (Bretwaldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries. Procopius records a story, told to him by a member of a diplomatic delegation from the Franks, including a group of Angles, which included that some Anglo-Saxons and British found their island so crowded that they migrated into northern Gaul to find lands to live on. There are other tales from the mid-6th century about groups of Anglo-Saxons leaving Britain to settle across the English Channel. All of these point to some kind of reversal in the fortunes of the invading Anglo-Saxons.
Archaeological evidence collected from the cemeteries of the pagan Anglo-Saxons suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500. The Anglo-Saxons held the present counties of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and around the Humber; it is clear that the native British controlled everything west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon at Christchurch north to the river Trent, then along the Trent to where it joined the Humber, and north along the river Derwent and then east to the North Sea, and an enclave to the north and west of London, and south of Verulamium (near St. Albans), that stretched west to join with the main frontier. The Britons defending this pocket could securely move their troops along Watling Street to bring reinforcements to London or Verulamium, and thus keep the invaders divided into pockets south of the Weald, in eastern Kent, and in the lands around the Wash.
In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577 between the West Saxons and the Britons, the British people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall, Devon Dorset and Somerset) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons. Deorham is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in Gloucestershire. The battle was promptly followed by the Saxon occupation of three cities: Cirencester (Corinium), probably a provincial capital in the Roman period; Gloucester (Glevum), a former legionary fortress and a colonia; and Bath (Aquae Sulis), a renowned pagan religious centre and spa city. However, their advance southwestward was held up for about a hundred years, until the battle of Peonnam, and was not complete until the 10th century. Though there were some gains towards Wales, it remained largely independent from the Saxons.
The remains of many villas are found in the vicinity of these cities, implying that the area was wealthy as well as relatively sophisticated: it must be inferred that this Saxon advance was a significant blow to the Britons. The battle is also considered by some to be decisive since it drove a land wedge between the Britons of what was to become Wales and those in the southwest peninsula. It has however been objected that, though the battle may have had an impact on large-scale movements, the passage of Welsh-speaking individuals was evidently not impossible: a Welsh genealogy appears to record that, in the 7th century, the descendants of kings of Pengwern founded a dynasty in the Glastonbury region. It would not have been difficult to make such a journey by boat. In fact, archaeology suggests that, although the Anglo-Saxons quickly took over the Cirencester region after the battle, it took some time for them to colonize Bath and Gloucester.
From the 4th century AD, many Britons had migrated across the English Channel from Wales, Cornwall and southern Britain, with their chiefs, soldiers, families, monks and priests, and started to settle and colonize the western part (Armorica) of Gaul (France) where they founded a new nation: Brittany. The immigrant Britons gave their new country its current name and contributed to the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The name "Brittany" (from "Little Britain") arose at this time to distinguish the new Britain from "Great Britain". Brezhoneg (the British language) is still spoken in Brittany in 2006.
Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.
At Dore (now a suburb of the City of Sheffield) Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.
England in 878
After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. One Viking settlement was in York, called Jorvik by the Vikings. Viking rule left significant traces in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing.
The principal legacy left behind in those territories where it is agreed that significant numbers of Britons remained is that of toponyms. Most of the place-names in Cornwall, and some in Cumberland and Westmorland, and in other pockets, are Brythonic in origin, as are the names of most former Romano-British cities, including London, Dorchester, Dover, and Colchester. A few place-name elements, referring to physical features, are thought to be Brythonic in origin, such as bre- and tor for hills, carr for a high rocky place, and coombe for a small deep valley (a rare example of a Brythonic word that had been borrowed into Old English).
Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies suggest that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes but many tribes remained in what was to become England (see C. Capelli et al. 'A Y chromosome census of the British Isles'. Current Biology 13, 979–984, (2003)). Capelli's findings strengthen the research of Steven Bassett of Birmingham University; his work during the 1990s suggests that much of the west Midlands was only very lightly colonised with Anglian and Saxon settlements (though this is not supported by the place-names of the region).
Yet a new study by University College London has shown that the Y Chromosome of most people in the UK has been very much affected by the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. UCL DNA Study. This is probably due to the nature of the Anglo-Saxon invasion - the Saxons being 'ferocious' as Charlemagne (a renowned Warrior King,) noted. But also due to subsequent mixing. ZAK
See also: Hengest, Cerdic of Wessex, Bede, Offa, Egbert of Wessex, Alfred the Great, and Anglo-Saxon Kings
England during the Middle Ages
Main article: Britain in the Middle Ages
Depiction of the Battle of Hastings (1066) on the Bayeux Tapestry
The defeat of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 at the hands of William II of Normandy, later styled William I of England, and the subsequent Norman takeover of Saxon England led to a sea-change in the history of the small, isolated, island state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes.
William ruled over Normandy, then a powerful duchy in France. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Anglo-Norman, in Normandy as well as in England. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.
The English Middle Ages were to be characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue amongst the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. The nation's international economy was based on the wool trade, in which the produce of the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth. Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the fifteenth century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.
Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (so named because of his education—as his older brother William was the heir apparent and thus given the practical training to be king, Henry received the alternate, formal education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.
During the disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135–1154), there was a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as civil war and lawlessness broke out. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders, he handed over large tracts of land. His conflicts with his cousin The Empress Matilda (also known as Empress Maud), whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: she bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).
Stephen was captured and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, although his hold on the throne was still uneasy. When Stephen's son and heir apparent Eustace died in 1153 Stephen reached an accommodation with Matilda which allowed her son, Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) to succeed Stephen and in which peace between them was guaranteed.
The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.
The signing of the Magna Carta (1215)
Henry's successor, Richard I "the Lion Heart", was preoccupied with foreign wars, taking part in the Third Crusade and defending his French territories against Philip II of France. His younger brother John, who succeeded him, was not so fortunate; he suffered the loss of Normandy and numerous other French territories. He also managed to antagonise the feudal nobility and leading Church figures to the extent that in 1215, they led an armed rebellion and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which imposed legal limits on the King's personal powers.
John's son, Henry III, was only 9 years old when he became King. His reign was punctuated by numerous rebellions and civil wars, often provoked by incompetence and mismanagement in Government, and Henry's perceived over-reliance on French courtiers (thus restricting the influence of the English nobility). One of these rebellions, led (curiously enough) by a disaffected courtier, Simon de Montfort, was notable for its assembly of one of the earliest precursors to Parliament.
The reign of Edward I (1272–1307) was rather more successful. Edward enacted numerous laws strengthening the powers of his Government, and summoned the first officially sanctioned Parliaments of England (such as his Model Parliament). He conquered Wales, and attempted to use a succession dispute to gain control of the Kingdom of Scotland, though this developed into a costly and drawn-out military campaign. His son, Edward II, suffered a massive defeat at Bannockburn; but the campaign continued until the early years of Edward III, and was only finally abandoned after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328.
The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and the Hundred Years' War against the French and their Scottish allies. Notable English victories in the Hundred Years' War included Crécy and Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owain Glyndŵr, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.
Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try to make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV sowed the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII.
See also: English historians in the Middle Ages, List of English chronicles, and Bayeux Tapestry
Tudor England
Main article: Early Modern Britain
The Wars of the Roses culminated in the eventual victory of the relatively unknown Henry Tudor, Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where the Yorkist Richard III was slain, and the succession of the Lancastrian House was ultimately assured. Whilst in retrospect it is easy for us to date the end of the Wars of the Roses to the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry VII could afford no such complacency. Before the end of his reign, two pretenders would try to wrest the throne from him, aided by remnants of the Yorkist faction at home and abroad. The first, Lambert Simnel, was defeated at the Battle of Stoke (the last time an English King fought someone claiming the Crown) and the second, Perkin Warbeck, was hanged in 1499 after plaguing the King for a decade.
In 1497, Michael An Gof led Cornish rebels in a march on London. In a battle over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford Bridge, An Gof fought for various issues with their root in taxes. On June 17, 1497 they were defeated, and Henry VII had showed he could display military prowess when he needed to. But, like Charles I in the future, here was a King with no wish to go "on his travels" again. The rest of his reign was relatively peaceful, despite a slight worry over the succession when his wife Elizabeth of York died in 1503.
King Henry VIII
King Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church over a question of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Though his religious position was not at all Protestant, the resultant schism ultimately led to England distancing itself almost entirely from Rome. A notable casualty of the schism was Henry's chancellor, Sir Thomas More. There followed a period of great religious and political upheaval, which led to the English Reformation, the royal expropriation of the monasteries and much of the wealth of the church. The Dissolution of the Monasteries had the effect of giving many of the lower classes (the gentry) a vested interest in the Reformation continuing, for to halt it would be to revive Monasticism and restore lands which were gifted to them during the Dissolution.
Edward and Mary
Henry VIII had three legitimate children who survived him, all of whom would wear the Crown. The first to reign was Edward VI of England. Although he showed piety and intelligence, he was only a boy of ten when he took the throne in 1547. His uncle, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset tampered with Henry VIII's will and obtained letters patent giving him much of the power of a monarch in March of that year. He took the title of Protector. Whilst some see him as a high-minded idealist, his stay in power culminated in a crisis in 1549 when many counties of the realm were up in protest. Kett's Rebellion in Kent and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall simultaneously created a crisis during a time when invasion from Scotland and France were feared. Somerset, disliked by the Regency Council for his autocratic methods, was removed from power by John Dudley, who is known as Lord President Northumberland. Northumberland proceeded to adopt the power for himself, but his methods were more conciliatory and the Council accepted him.
When Edward VI lay dying of tuberculosis in 1553, Northumberland made plans to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and marry her to his son, so that he could remain the power behind the throne. His putsch failed and Mary I took the throne amidst popular demonstration in her favour in London, which contemporaries described as the largest show of affection for a Tudor monarch. Mary, a devout Catholic who had been influenced greatly by the Catholic King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, tried to reimpose Catholicism on the realm. This led to 274 burnings of Protestants, which are recorded especially in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. She was highly unpopular among her people, and the Spanish party of her husband, Philip II caused much resentment around Court. Mary lost Calais, the last English possession on the Continent, and became increasingly more unpopular (except among Catholics) as her reign wore on. She successfully repelled a rebellion by Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Elizabeth
The reign of Elizabeth restored a sort of order to the realm following the turbulence of the reigns of Edward and Mary when she came to the throne following the death of the latter in 1558. The religious issue which had divided the country since Henry VIII was in a way put to rest by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which created the Church of England in much the same form we see it today. Much of Elizabeth's success was in balancing the interests of the Puritans (radical Protestants) and "die-hard" Catholics. She managed to offend neither to a large extent, although she clamped down on Catholics towards the end of her reign as war with Catholic Spain loomed.
The slave trade that established Britain as a major economic power can be attributed to Elizabeth, who granted John Hawkins the permission to commence trading in 1562. The number of Africans transported to England was so great due to the slave trade that by 1596 Elizabeth complained that "several blackamoores have lately been brought into this realm of which kind of people there are already too much here". She tried unsuccessfully to expel them via a Proclamation in 1601.
Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth maintained relative government stability apart from the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569, she was effective in reducing the power of the old nobility and expanding the power of her government. One of the most famous events in English martial history occurred in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was repelled by the English navy commanded by Sir Francis Drake, but the war that followed was very costly for England and only ended after Elizabeth's death. Elizabeth's government did much to consolidate the work begun under Thomas Cromwell in the reign of Henry VIII, that is, expanding the role of the government and in effecting common law and administration throughout England. During the reign of Elizabeth and shortly afterward, the population grew significantly: from three million in 1564 to nearly five million in 1616.[3]
In all, the Tudor period is seen as a decisive one which set up many important questions which would have to be answered in the next century and during the English Civil War. These were questions of the relative power of the monarch and Parliament and to what extent one should control the other. Some historians think that Thomas Cromwell affected a "Tudor Revolution" in government, and it is certain that Parliament became a lot more important during his chancellorship. Other historians say the "Tudor Revolution" really extended to the end of Elizabeth's reign, when the work was all consolidated. Although the Privy Council, which was the mainstay of Tudor government, declined after the death of Elizabeth, while she was alive it was very effective.
See also: English Renaissance
The Stuarts and the Civil War
Main article: British Civil War
Elizabeth died in 1603 without leaving any direct heirs. Her closest male Protestant relative was the King of Scots, James VI, of the House of Stuart, who following the Union of the Crowns became King James I of England. King James I & VI as he was styled became the first King of the entire island of Great Britain, though he continued to rule the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland separately. A number of assassination attempts were made on James, notably the Main Plot and Bye Plots of 1603, and most famously, on November 5, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, by a group of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, which was stoked up and served as further fuel for antipathy in England towards the Catholic faith.
Maps of territory held by Royalists (red) and Parliamentarians (green) during the English Civil War (1642–1645).
The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between James' son, Charles I, and Parliament. The defeat of the Royalist army by the New Model Army of Parliament at the Battle of Naseby in June 1645 effectively destroyed the King's forces. Charles surrendered to the Scottish army at Newark. He was eventually handed over to the English Parliament in early 1647. He escaped and the Second English Civil War began, although it was to be only a short conflict, with Parliament quickly securing the country. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles led to his beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London. A republic was declared and Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector in 1653. After he died, his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him in the office, but soon abdicated. The monarchy was restored in 1660, after England entered a period of anomie, with King Charles II returning to London.
King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649
(In 1665, London was swept by a visitation of the plague, and then, in 1666, the capital was swept by the Great Fire, which raged for 5 days, destroying approximately 15,000 buildings).
The death of Charles II in 1685 saw his Catholic brother crowned King James II & VII. England with a Catholic King on the throne was too much for both people and parliament and in 1689 the Dutch Protestant Prince William of Orange was invited to replace King James II in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Despite attempts to secure his reign by force, James was finally defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. However, in parts of Scotland and Ireland Catholics loyal to James remained determined to see him restored to the throne and there followed a series of bloody though unsuccessful uprisings. As a result of these, any failure to pledge loyalty to the victorious King William was severely dealt with. The most infamous example of this policy being the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692. Jacobite rebellions continued on into the mid-18th century until the son of the last Catholic claimant to the throne, (James III & VIII), mounted a final campaign in 1745. The Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of legend, were resoundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Colonial England
In 1607 England built an establishment in Virginia (Jamestown). This was the beginning of English colonization. Many English settled then in North America for religious or economic reasons. The English merchants holding plantations in the warm southern parts of America then resorted rather quickly to the slavery of Native Americans and imported Africans in order to cultivate their plantations and sell raw material (particularly cotton and tobacco) in Europe. The English merchants involved in colonization accrued fortunes equal to those of great aristocratic landowners in England, and their money, which fueled the rise of the middle class, permanently altered the balance of political power.
The Industrial Revolution
Main article: Economic history of Britain
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw considerable social upheaval as a largely agrarian society was transformed by technological advances and increasing mechanisation, which was the Industrial Revolution. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production, as the steam-based production factories could undercut the traditional cottage industries, due to economies of scale and the increased output per worker made possible by the new technologies. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in the rise of infant mortality (to the extent that many Sunday schools for pre working age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each others funeral arrangements), crime, and social deprivation.
The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.
Recent history
Main article: History of the United Kingdom
The Acts of Union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 saw the dissolution of both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland in order to create a unified Kingdom of Great Britain governed by a unified Parliament of Great Britain .
The Act of Union of 1800 formally assimilated Ireland within the British political process and from 1 January 1801 created a new state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland to form a single political entity.
Therefore, since 1707 England, while ceasing to exist as an independent political entity, has remained highly dominant in what is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Due to her geographic size and large population, the dominant political and economic influence in the UK stems from England. London has remained the capital city of the UK and has built upon its status as the economic and political centre of the UK. It is also one of the world's great cities.
During the early 19th century, the working classes began to find a voice. Concentrations of industry led to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist.
Chartism is thought to have originated from the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill, which gave the vote to the majority of the (male) middle classes, but not to the 'working class'. Many people made speeches on the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. In 1838, six members of Parliament and six workingmen formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter.
London during The Blitz in World War II
The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.
The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
England bore the full brunt of German bombing during World War II, many of its cities were badly damaged and huge amounts of infrastructure destroyed. England rapidly recovered after the war, and while internationally the relative wealth and power of Britain has faded, England still remains the dominant partner within the UK.
During 1999 the UK Government policy of devolution to some of the UK constituent countries saw the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament and the establishment of the Welsh Assembly. (The Northern Ireland Assembly is also due to be reconvened on May 8, 2007). There is no English equivalent of home rule and this in part is a reflection of the dominance English affairs have played within the proceedings of the UK parliament.
History of China
he history of China is told in traditional historical records that go back to the Three sovereigns and five emperors about 5,000 years ago, supplemented by archaeological records dating to the 16th century BC. China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. Turtle shells with markings reminiscent of ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon dated to around 1500 BC. Chinese civilization originated with city-states in the Yellow River valley. 221 BC is the commonly accepted year when China became unified under a large kingdom or empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to control the large territory.
The foundations of Chinese civilization were the Qin Dynasty (秦) Emperor's imposition of a common system of writing in the 3rd century BC and the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism in the 2nd century BC. China alternated between periods of political unity and disunity, with occasionally conquests by foreign peoples, some of whom were assimilated into the Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and assimilation, merged to create Chinese culture.
From hunter-gatherers to farmers
What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated as 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu (西侯渡) in Shanxi Province is the earliest record of use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago[1] The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man found in 1923. Two pottery pieces were unearthed at Liyuzui Cave in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province dated 16,500 and 19,000 BC.[2] Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is carbon-dated to about 7,000 BC, and associated with the Jiahu site, which is also the earliest site of playable music instruments, earliest stage of Chinese language writing system (still under debate) and earliest wine production in world. Jiahu is the early stage of Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan, of which only 5% has been excavated as of 2006. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo (半坡), Xi'an.
Prehistory
The early history of China is complicated by the lack of a written language during this period coupled with the existence of documents from later time periods attempting to describe events that occurred several centuries before. The problem in some sense stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history. By 7000 BC, the Chinese were farming millet, giving rise to the Jiahu culture. Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC. Archaeological sites such as Sanxingdui and Erlitou show evidence of a Bronze Age civilization in China. The earliest bronze knife was found at Majiayao in Gansu and Qinhai province dated 3000 BC.
Three sovereigns and five emperors
Main article: Three August Ones and Five Emperors
The earliest comprehensive history of China, the Records of the Grand Historian written by Chinese historiographer Sima Qian in the 2nd century BC, and the Bamboo Annals trace Chinese history from about 2800 BC, with an account of the Three August Ones and the Five Emperors. These rulers were semi-mythical sage-kings and moral exemplars. Tradition regards one of them, the Yellow Emperor, as the ancestor of the Han Chinese people.
Sima Qian says that the system of inherited ruler-ship was established during the Xia Dynasty, and that this model was perpetuated in the recorded Shang and Zhou dynasties. It is during this period of the Three Dynasties (Chinese: 三代; pinyin: sāndài) that the historical China emerges.
Ancient history
Xia Dynasty
Main article: Xia Dynasty
See also: Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project
Bronze container Lozenge Carven Ding (菱纹鼎)found at Erlitou site, the Xia palace.
Sima Qian and Bamboo Annals's account dates the founding of the Xia Dynasty to 4,200 years ago, but this date has not been corroborated.
There were 17 kings of 14 generations during Xia Dynasty from Yu the Great to Jie of Xia according to Sima Qian and other records in the later Qin Dynasty.
The Shang and Zhou people had existed with Xia Dynasty since the beginning of Xia. They were Xia’s vassal. The exact time length of the Xia Dynasty is hard to define now, but mainly focused on two options, either 431 years or 471 years.
Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province,[3] where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, have been alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters.[4][dubious — see talk page] With few clear written records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.
Shang Dynasty
Main article: Shang Dynasty
Remnants of advanced, stratified societies dating back to the Shang period have been found in the Yellow River Valley.
Simuwu Ding(司母戊) of Late Shang Dynasty. Height 133cm, long 110cm, wide 79cm, weigh 832.84kg. the largest discovered bronze piece in the world. Made by Zu Jia of Shang for his mother Wu(戊), Wu Ding(武丁)'s wife. Unearthed at Anyang in 1939.
The earliest discovered written record of China's past dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period (c 1600–1300 BC) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the nine capitals of the Shang (c 1300–1046 BC). There were 31 kings from Tang of Shang to King Zhou of Shang of Shang Dynasty and it is the longest dynasty in Chinese history.
The Records of the Grand Historian states that the Shang Dynasty moved its capital six times. The final and most important move to Yin in 1350 BC led to the golden age of the dynasty. The term Yin Dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although lately it has been used specifically in reference to the latter half of the Shang Dynasty.
Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.
Written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty. However, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.
Zhou Dynasty
Main article: Zhou Dynasty
By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou were a people who lived west of Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed "Western Protector" by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his uncle, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, near the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.
Spring and Autumn Period
Main article: Spring and Autumn Period
In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋時代), named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second large phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Local leaders for instance started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought (諸子百家) of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism (儒家), Taoism (道家), Legalism (法家) and Mohism (墨家) were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some only as large as a village with a fort.
Warring States Period
Main article: Warring States Period
After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States Period (戰國時代). Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power. As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan (四川)and Liaoning (遼寧), were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng (嬴政), the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang (浙江), Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huangdi, 秦始皇帝).There had also 3 classes to help control their kingdom, the classes where:King, Nobles,and Peasants.
Qin Dynasty
The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
Main article: Qin Dynasty
Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as imperial China. Though the unified reign of the Qin (秦) Emperor lasted only twelve years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (咸陽)(in modern Xi'an). The doctrine of legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while very effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peace time. The Qin presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han Synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.
The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, which was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty (明朝). The other major contributions of the Qin included unifying the legal code, written language, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire.[5]
Han Dynasty
Main article: Han Dynasty(206 BC-202 AD)
The Han Dynasty (漢朝) emerged in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu (Han Wudi 漢武帝) consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (匈奴) (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia (內蒙古), wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu (甘肅), Ningxia (寧夏) and Qinghai (青海). This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, the Silk Road (絲綢之路).
Nevertheless, land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang (王莽) founded the short-lived Xin ("New") Dynasty (新朝) and started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms. These programs, however, were never supported by the land-holding families, for they favored the peasant and lesser gentry, and the instability they produced brought on chaos and uprisings.
Emperor Guangwu (光武帝) reinstated the Han Dynasty with the support of land-holding and merchant families at Luoyang (洛陽), east of Xi'an. This new era would be termed the Eastern Han Dynasty (東漢). Han power declined again amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion (黃巾之亂) broke out in 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the Period of the Three Kingdoms (三國). This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義).
The Jin Period
Main article: Jìn Dynasty (265-420)
Though three groups were reunited temporarily in 278 by the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu, 五胡) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Chang Jiang. In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan the Xiongnu rebelled near today's Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. His successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. Sixteen kingdoms is a plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that from 303 came to rule the whole or parts of northern China. Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks, the Mongolians, and the Tibetans. Most of these nomadic peoples, relatively few in number, had to some extent been Sinicized long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Ch'iang and the Xiong-nu, had already since late Han times been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall.
Southern and Northern Dynasties
Main article: Southern and Northern Dynasties
Signaled by the collapse of East Jin(東晉)Dynasty in 420 A.D., China entered the era of the Southern and Northen Dynasties. Under the rule of Southern Dynasties, the Han people managed to survive from the military attacks from non-Chinese ethnic groups, basically Xian Bei(鲜卑)-- the founder of the Northern Dynasties, and Han Chinese civilization continued to thrive, although its superiority over the Northern Dynasties was gradually lost due to frequent cultural exchange as well as civil conflicts between the two independent sovereigns.
An increasing number of nomadic people in Northern China adopted Confucianism as personal life guidance and state ideology while becoming gradually assimilated by the Han Chinese civilization. During this rivalry between Northern and Southern China, Buddhism propagated throughout China for the first time, albeit being confounded by the native religion -- Taoism. Tuo Ba Tao(拓跋焘)，a faithful Taoist believer and emperor of the Northen Wei(北魏)Dynasty (one of the Northern Dynasties), issued orders to eliminate Buddhism from the country.
In Southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed to exist were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, near the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, both Buddhism and Taoism compromised and became more tolerant to each other.
In 589 A.D., Sui (隋) annexed the last Southern Dynasty -- Chen (陳)through military force, and put an end to the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Sui Dynasty
Main article: Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty (隋朝), which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation at which time the north and south had developed independently, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. In the same way that the Qin rulers of the 3rd century BC had unified China after the Warring States Period, so the Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overstrained their resources and fell. And also as in the case of the Qin, traditional history has judged the Sui somewhat unfairly; it has stressed the harshness of the Sui regime and the megalomania of its second emperor, giving very little credit for its many positive achievements.
Tang Dynasty
A Chinese Tang Dynasty tri-colored glaze porcelain horse (ca. 700 CE).
Main article: Tang Dynasty
On June 18, 618, Gaozu (唐高祖) took the throne, and the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) was established, opening a new age of prosperity and innovations in arts and technology. Buddhism, which had gradually been established in China from the first century, became the predominant religion and was adopted by the royal family and many of the common people.
Chang'an (長安) (modern Xi'an), the national capital, is thought to have been the world's biggest city at the time. The Tang and the Han are often referred to as the most prosperous periods of Chinese history.
The Tang, like the Han, kept the trade routes open to the west and south and there was extensive trade with distant foreign countries and many foreign merchants settled in China.
From about 860 the Tang Dynasty began to decline due to a series of rebellions within China itself, and in the previously subject Kingdom of Nanzhao (南詔) to the south. One of the warlords, Huang Chao (黃巢), captured Guangzhou (廣州) in 879, killing most of the 200,000 inhabitants including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families there. In late 880 Luoyang surrendered to him and on 5 January, 881 he conquered Changan. The emperor Xizong (唐僖宗) fled to Chengdu and Huang established a new temporary regime, which was eventually destroyed by Tang forces. However, another time of political chaos followed.
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Main article: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (五代十国), lasted little more than half a century, from 907 to 960. During this brief era, when China was in all respects a multistate system, five regimes succeeded one another rapidly in control of the old Imperial heartland in northern China. During this same time, 10 more stable regimes occupied sections of southern and western China, so the period is also referred to as that of the Ten Kingdoms (十国).
Song Dynasty
Main article: Song Dynasty
In 960, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) (宋朝) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (汴京/開封), starting a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty (契丹族遼國) ruled over Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In 1115 the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (女真族金國) emerged to prominence, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. It also took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou (杭州). The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and the Tangut Western Xia (西夏). Southern Song experienced a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.
Yuan Dynasty
Main article: Yuan Dynasty
The Jin Empire was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war where firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In China, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of Han Chinese.
Kublai Khan (忽必烈/元世祖), grandson of Genghis Khan (成吉思汗), wanting to adopt Han Chinese customs, established the Yuan Dynasty (元朝). This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing (北京) as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the 16 Prefectures of Yan Yun (燕雲十六州). Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.
Ming Dynasty
Main article: Ming Dynasty
This section describes the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
There was strong sentiment, among the populace, against the rule of the "foreigner" (known as Dázi 韃子), which finally led to peasant revolts. The Mongolians were pushed back to the steppes and replaced by the Ming Dynasty (明朝) in 1368.
During Mongol rule, the population had dropped by 40 percent, to an estimated 60 million. Two centuries later, it had doubled. Urbanization thus increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.
Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan (倭國), increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He (鄭和, original name Ma Sanbao 馬三保).
Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) or (Hong-wu, 洪武皇帝/明太祖), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian Dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le (永樂皇帝/明成祖), independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked remained essentially as they had been under the Song, but now the remnants of the older foreign merchant class also fell under these new Ming laws. Their influence quickly dwindled.
1580s foreign relations of the Ming Empire (shown in blue)
The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the "Grand Secretaries" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.
Emperor Yong-le strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond its borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million) was created. The Chinese armies conquered Annam (安南) while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained influence over Turkestan. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded, and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor. The Ming period seems to have been one of China's most prosperous. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated, and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.
During the Ming dynasty was the last construction on the Great Wall. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.
Qing Dynasty
Main article: Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty (清朝, 1644–1911) was founded after the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus (滿族). The Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchen and invaded from the north in the late seventeenth century. Even though the Manchus started out as alien conquerors, they quickly adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government. They eventually ruled in the manner of traditional native dynasties.
The Manchus enforced a 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue and Manchu-style clothing. The Manchus had a special hair style: the "queue". They cut hair off the front of their heads and made the remaining hair into a long pigtail. The traditional Chinese clothing, or Hanfu (漢服) was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Qipao (bannermen dress, 旗袍) and Tangzhuang (唐裝), usually regarded as traditional Chinese clothing nowadays, are actually Manchu-style clothing. The penalty for not complying was death.
Emperor Kangxi (康熙皇帝/清聖祖) ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. Under Emperor Qianlong, the compilation of a catalogue of the important works on Chinese culture was made.
The Manchus set up the "Eight Banners" system (八旗制度) in an attempt to avoid being assimilated into Chinese society. The "Eight Banners" were military institutions, set up to provide a structure with which the Manchu "bannermen" were meant to identify. Banner membership was to be based on traditional Manchu skills such as archery, horsemanship, and frugality. In addition, they were encouraged to use the Manchu language, rather than Chinese. Bannermen were given economic and legal privileges in Chinese cities.
Over the next half-century, the Manchus consolidated control of some areas originally under the Ming, including Yunnan (雲南). They also stretched their sphere of influence over Xinjiang (新疆), Tibet (西藏) and Mongolia (蒙古).
During the 19th century, Qing control weakened. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, and Western penetration and influence. Britain's desire to continue its opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War (鴉片戰爭) erupted in 1840. Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, thereupon forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong (香港) was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking (南京條約). In addition, the Taiping Rebellion (太平天國) (1851–1864) and the Boxer Rebellion (義和團之亂) occurred in this century. In many ways the rebellions and the treaties the Qing were forced to sign with the imperialist powers are symptomatic of the inability of the Chinese government to respond adequately to the challenging conditions facing China in the 19th century.
Modern Era
The two Opium wars and the opium trade were costly outcomes for the Qing dynasty and the Chinese people. The Qing imperial treasury was declared bankrupt twice arising from indemnities incurred in the Opium wars and the large outflow of silver due to the opium trade (in tens of billions of ounces). China suffered two extreme famines exactly twenty years after each opium war in the 1860s and 1880s, and the Qing imperial dynasty was ineffective in helping the population. Socially these events had a profound impact as it challenged the hegemony that the Chinese had enjoyed in Asia for centuries. As a result, the country was in a state of turmoil.
A large rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, involved around a third of China falling under control of the Taiping Tianguo, a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan. Only after fourteen years were the Taipings finally crushed - the Taiping army was destroyed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. In total between twenty million and fifty million lives were lost, making it the second deadliest war in human history.
The Qing officials were slow to adopt modernity and suspicious of social and technological advances that they viewed as a threat to their absolute control over China. As an example, gunpowder had been widely used by the army of the Song and Ming Dynasties, then was forbidden by the Qing rulers after they took over China.[citation needed] Therefore, the dynasty was ill-equipped to handle the Western encroachment. Western powers did intervene militarily to quell domestic chaos, such as the Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion (義和團起義). General Gordon, later killed in the siege of Khartoum, Sudan, was often credited with having saved the Qing dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.
By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. This undermined the credibility of the Qing regime and, spearheaded by local initiatives by provincial leaders and gentry, contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. The Qing Dynasty under the Emperor Guangxu (光緒皇帝/清德宗) proceeded to deal with the problem of modernization through the Self-Strengthening Movement (自強運動). However, between 1898 and 1908 the Empress Dowager Cixi had the reformist Guangxu imprisoned for being 'mentally disabled'. The Empress Dowager (慈禧太后), with the help of conservatives, initiated a military coup, effectively removed the young Emperor from power, and overturned most of the more radical reforms. He died one day before the death of the Empress Dowager (some believe Guangxu was poisoned by Cixi). Official corruption, cynicism, and imperial family quarrels made most of the military reforms useless. As a result, the Qing's "New Armies" were soundly defeated in the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).
At the start of the 20th century, the Boxer Rebellion threatened northern China. This was a conservative anti-imperialist movement that sought to return China to old ways. The Empress Dowager, probably seeking to ensure her continued grip on power, sided with the Boxers when they advanced on Beijing. In response the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China. Consisting of British, Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, US and Austrian troops, the alliance defeated the Boxers and demanded further concessions from the Qing government.
The Republic of China
Main article: History of the Republic of China
Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform and by China's weakness, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) —began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on October 10, 1911 in Wuhan (武漢). The provisional government of the Republic of China (中華民國) was formed in Nanjing on March 12, 1912 with Sun Yat-sen as President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision he would later regret). Yuan Shikai proceeded in the next few years to abolish the national and provincial assemblies and declared himself emperor in 1915. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates, and faced with the prospect of rebellion, Yuan abdicated and died shortly after in 1916, leaving a power vacuum in China. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the "warlords" when China was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.
A little noticed event (to the rest of the world) in 1919 would have long-term repercussions for the rest of Chinese history in the 20th century. This was the May Fourth Movement (五四運動). This movement began as a response to the insult imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I but became a protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst Chinese intellectuals was followed by the adoption of more radical lines of thought. This in turn planted the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century.
In the 1920s, Sun Yat-Sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China (CPC, 中國共產黨). After Sun's death from cancer in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT, 國民黨) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition (北伐). Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic (中華蘇維埃共和國), the CPC forces embarked on the Long March (長征) across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shanxi Province (陝西省延安市).
During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung, 毛澤東). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-1945), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) portion of World War II. The war between the two parties resumed following the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CPC occupied most of the country. (see Chinese Civil War)
Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his government to Taiwan in 1949 and his Nationalist Party would control the island as well as a few neighboring islands until democratic elections in the late 1990s. Since then the political status of Taiwan has always been under dispute.
The present
The History of the People's Republic of China contains the details between 1949 and the present
See also: People's Republic of China and Political status of Taiwan
With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) (中華人民共和國) on October 1, 1949, China was divided once again according to the claims of that government. However, the actual political and legal status of Taiwan is disputed. Since the 1990s, the Republic of China government which governs Taiwan along with associated islands as well as some small islands off the coast of Fujian has been pushing to gain international recognition, while the People's Republic of China vehemently opposes foreign involvement, and insists that foreign relations not deviate from the One-China policy.
The foundations of Chinese civilization were the Qin Dynasty (秦) Emperor's imposition of a common system of writing in the 3rd century BC and the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism in the 2nd century BC. China alternated between periods of political unity and disunity, with occasionally conquests by foreign peoples, some of whom were assimilated into the Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and assimilation, merged to create Chinese culture.
From hunter-gatherers to farmers
What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated as 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu (西侯渡) in Shanxi Province is the earliest record of use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago[1] The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man found in 1923. Two pottery pieces were unearthed at Liyuzui Cave in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province dated 16,500 and 19,000 BC.[2] Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is carbon-dated to about 7,000 BC, and associated with the Jiahu site, which is also the earliest site of playable music instruments, earliest stage of Chinese language writing system (still under debate) and earliest wine production in world. Jiahu is the early stage of Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan, of which only 5% has been excavated as of 2006. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo (半坡), Xi'an.
Prehistory
The early history of China is complicated by the lack of a written language during this period coupled with the existence of documents from later time periods attempting to describe events that occurred several centuries before. The problem in some sense stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history. By 7000 BC, the Chinese were farming millet, giving rise to the Jiahu culture. Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC. Archaeological sites such as Sanxingdui and Erlitou show evidence of a Bronze Age civilization in China. The earliest bronze knife was found at Majiayao in Gansu and Qinhai province dated 3000 BC.
Three sovereigns and five emperors
Main article: Three August Ones and Five Emperors
The earliest comprehensive history of China, the Records of the Grand Historian written by Chinese historiographer Sima Qian in the 2nd century BC, and the Bamboo Annals trace Chinese history from about 2800 BC, with an account of the Three August Ones and the Five Emperors. These rulers were semi-mythical sage-kings and moral exemplars. Tradition regards one of them, the Yellow Emperor, as the ancestor of the Han Chinese people.
Sima Qian says that the system of inherited ruler-ship was established during the Xia Dynasty, and that this model was perpetuated in the recorded Shang and Zhou dynasties. It is during this period of the Three Dynasties (Chinese: 三代; pinyin: sāndài) that the historical China emerges.
Ancient history
Xia Dynasty
Main article: Xia Dynasty
See also: Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project
Bronze container Lozenge Carven Ding (菱纹鼎)found at Erlitou site, the Xia palace.
Sima Qian and Bamboo Annals's account dates the founding of the Xia Dynasty to 4,200 years ago, but this date has not been corroborated.
There were 17 kings of 14 generations during Xia Dynasty from Yu the Great to Jie of Xia according to Sima Qian and other records in the later Qin Dynasty.
The Shang and Zhou people had existed with Xia Dynasty since the beginning of Xia. They were Xia’s vassal. The exact time length of the Xia Dynasty is hard to define now, but mainly focused on two options, either 431 years or 471 years.
Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province,[3] where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, have been alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters.[4][dubious — see talk page] With few clear written records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.
Shang Dynasty
Main article: Shang Dynasty
Remnants of advanced, stratified societies dating back to the Shang period have been found in the Yellow River Valley.
Simuwu Ding(司母戊) of Late Shang Dynasty. Height 133cm, long 110cm, wide 79cm, weigh 832.84kg. the largest discovered bronze piece in the world. Made by Zu Jia of Shang for his mother Wu(戊), Wu Ding(武丁)'s wife. Unearthed at Anyang in 1939.
The earliest discovered written record of China's past dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period (c 1600–1300 BC) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the nine capitals of the Shang (c 1300–1046 BC). There were 31 kings from Tang of Shang to King Zhou of Shang of Shang Dynasty and it is the longest dynasty in Chinese history.
The Records of the Grand Historian states that the Shang Dynasty moved its capital six times. The final and most important move to Yin in 1350 BC led to the golden age of the dynasty. The term Yin Dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although lately it has been used specifically in reference to the latter half of the Shang Dynasty.
Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.
Written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty. However, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.
Zhou Dynasty
Main article: Zhou Dynasty
By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou were a people who lived west of Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed "Western Protector" by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his uncle, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, near the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.
Spring and Autumn Period
Main article: Spring and Autumn Period
In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋時代), named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second large phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Local leaders for instance started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought (諸子百家) of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism (儒家), Taoism (道家), Legalism (法家) and Mohism (墨家) were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some only as large as a village with a fort.
Warring States Period
Main article: Warring States Period
After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States Period (戰國時代). Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power. As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan (四川)and Liaoning (遼寧), were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng (嬴政), the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang (浙江), Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huangdi, 秦始皇帝).There had also 3 classes to help control their kingdom, the classes where:King, Nobles,and Peasants.
Qin Dynasty
The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
Main article: Qin Dynasty
Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as imperial China. Though the unified reign of the Qin (秦) Emperor lasted only twelve years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (咸陽)(in modern Xi'an). The doctrine of legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while very effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peace time. The Qin presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han Synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.
The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, which was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty (明朝). The other major contributions of the Qin included unifying the legal code, written language, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire.[5]
Han Dynasty
Main article: Han Dynasty(206 BC-202 AD)
The Han Dynasty (漢朝) emerged in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu (Han Wudi 漢武帝) consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (匈奴) (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia (內蒙古), wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu (甘肅), Ningxia (寧夏) and Qinghai (青海). This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, the Silk Road (絲綢之路).
Nevertheless, land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang (王莽) founded the short-lived Xin ("New") Dynasty (新朝) and started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms. These programs, however, were never supported by the land-holding families, for they favored the peasant and lesser gentry, and the instability they produced brought on chaos and uprisings.
Emperor Guangwu (光武帝) reinstated the Han Dynasty with the support of land-holding and merchant families at Luoyang (洛陽), east of Xi'an. This new era would be termed the Eastern Han Dynasty (東漢). Han power declined again amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion (黃巾之亂) broke out in 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the Period of the Three Kingdoms (三國). This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義).
The Jin Period
Main article: Jìn Dynasty (265-420)
Though three groups were reunited temporarily in 278 by the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu, 五胡) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Chang Jiang. In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan the Xiongnu rebelled near today's Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. His successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. Sixteen kingdoms is a plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that from 303 came to rule the whole or parts of northern China. Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks, the Mongolians, and the Tibetans. Most of these nomadic peoples, relatively few in number, had to some extent been Sinicized long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Ch'iang and the Xiong-nu, had already since late Han times been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall.
Southern and Northern Dynasties
Main article: Southern and Northern Dynasties
Signaled by the collapse of East Jin(東晉)Dynasty in 420 A.D., China entered the era of the Southern and Northen Dynasties. Under the rule of Southern Dynasties, the Han people managed to survive from the military attacks from non-Chinese ethnic groups, basically Xian Bei(鲜卑)-- the founder of the Northern Dynasties, and Han Chinese civilization continued to thrive, although its superiority over the Northern Dynasties was gradually lost due to frequent cultural exchange as well as civil conflicts between the two independent sovereigns.
An increasing number of nomadic people in Northern China adopted Confucianism as personal life guidance and state ideology while becoming gradually assimilated by the Han Chinese civilization. During this rivalry between Northern and Southern China, Buddhism propagated throughout China for the first time, albeit being confounded by the native religion -- Taoism. Tuo Ba Tao(拓跋焘)，a faithful Taoist believer and emperor of the Northen Wei(北魏)Dynasty (one of the Northern Dynasties), issued orders to eliminate Buddhism from the country.
In Southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed to exist were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, near the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, both Buddhism and Taoism compromised and became more tolerant to each other.
In 589 A.D., Sui (隋) annexed the last Southern Dynasty -- Chen (陳)through military force, and put an end to the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Sui Dynasty
Main article: Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty (隋朝), which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation at which time the north and south had developed independently, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. In the same way that the Qin rulers of the 3rd century BC had unified China after the Warring States Period, so the Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overstrained their resources and fell. And also as in the case of the Qin, traditional history has judged the Sui somewhat unfairly; it has stressed the harshness of the Sui regime and the megalomania of its second emperor, giving very little credit for its many positive achievements.
Tang Dynasty
A Chinese Tang Dynasty tri-colored glaze porcelain horse (ca. 700 CE).
Main article: Tang Dynasty
On June 18, 618, Gaozu (唐高祖) took the throne, and the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) was established, opening a new age of prosperity and innovations in arts and technology. Buddhism, which had gradually been established in China from the first century, became the predominant religion and was adopted by the royal family and many of the common people.
Chang'an (長安) (modern Xi'an), the national capital, is thought to have been the world's biggest city at the time. The Tang and the Han are often referred to as the most prosperous periods of Chinese history.
The Tang, like the Han, kept the trade routes open to the west and south and there was extensive trade with distant foreign countries and many foreign merchants settled in China.
From about 860 the Tang Dynasty began to decline due to a series of rebellions within China itself, and in the previously subject Kingdom of Nanzhao (南詔) to the south. One of the warlords, Huang Chao (黃巢), captured Guangzhou (廣州) in 879, killing most of the 200,000 inhabitants including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families there. In late 880 Luoyang surrendered to him and on 5 January, 881 he conquered Changan. The emperor Xizong (唐僖宗) fled to Chengdu and Huang established a new temporary regime, which was eventually destroyed by Tang forces. However, another time of political chaos followed.
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Main article: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (五代十国), lasted little more than half a century, from 907 to 960. During this brief era, when China was in all respects a multistate system, five regimes succeeded one another rapidly in control of the old Imperial heartland in northern China. During this same time, 10 more stable regimes occupied sections of southern and western China, so the period is also referred to as that of the Ten Kingdoms (十国).
Song Dynasty
Main article: Song Dynasty
In 960, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) (宋朝) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (汴京/開封), starting a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty (契丹族遼國) ruled over Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In 1115 the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (女真族金國) emerged to prominence, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. It also took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou (杭州). The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and the Tangut Western Xia (西夏). Southern Song experienced a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.
Yuan Dynasty
Main article: Yuan Dynasty
The Jin Empire was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war where firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In China, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of Han Chinese.
Kublai Khan (忽必烈/元世祖), grandson of Genghis Khan (成吉思汗), wanting to adopt Han Chinese customs, established the Yuan Dynasty (元朝). This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing (北京) as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the 16 Prefectures of Yan Yun (燕雲十六州). Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.
Ming Dynasty
Main article: Ming Dynasty
This section describes the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
There was strong sentiment, among the populace, against the rule of the "foreigner" (known as Dázi 韃子), which finally led to peasant revolts. The Mongolians were pushed back to the steppes and replaced by the Ming Dynasty (明朝) in 1368.
During Mongol rule, the population had dropped by 40 percent, to an estimated 60 million. Two centuries later, it had doubled. Urbanization thus increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.
Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan (倭國), increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He (鄭和, original name Ma Sanbao 馬三保).
Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) or (Hong-wu, 洪武皇帝/明太祖), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian Dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le (永樂皇帝/明成祖), independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked remained essentially as they had been under the Song, but now the remnants of the older foreign merchant class also fell under these new Ming laws. Their influence quickly dwindled.
1580s foreign relations of the Ming Empire (shown in blue)
The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the "Grand Secretaries" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.
Emperor Yong-le strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond its borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million) was created. The Chinese armies conquered Annam (安南) while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained influence over Turkestan. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded, and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor. The Ming period seems to have been one of China's most prosperous. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated, and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.
During the Ming dynasty was the last construction on the Great Wall. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.
Qing Dynasty
Main article: Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty (清朝, 1644–1911) was founded after the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus (滿族). The Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchen and invaded from the north in the late seventeenth century. Even though the Manchus started out as alien conquerors, they quickly adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government. They eventually ruled in the manner of traditional native dynasties.
The Manchus enforced a 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue and Manchu-style clothing. The Manchus had a special hair style: the "queue". They cut hair off the front of their heads and made the remaining hair into a long pigtail. The traditional Chinese clothing, or Hanfu (漢服) was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Qipao (bannermen dress, 旗袍) and Tangzhuang (唐裝), usually regarded as traditional Chinese clothing nowadays, are actually Manchu-style clothing. The penalty for not complying was death.
Emperor Kangxi (康熙皇帝/清聖祖) ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. Under Emperor Qianlong, the compilation of a catalogue of the important works on Chinese culture was made.
The Manchus set up the "Eight Banners" system (八旗制度) in an attempt to avoid being assimilated into Chinese society. The "Eight Banners" were military institutions, set up to provide a structure with which the Manchu "bannermen" were meant to identify. Banner membership was to be based on traditional Manchu skills such as archery, horsemanship, and frugality. In addition, they were encouraged to use the Manchu language, rather than Chinese. Bannermen were given economic and legal privileges in Chinese cities.
Over the next half-century, the Manchus consolidated control of some areas originally under the Ming, including Yunnan (雲南). They also stretched their sphere of influence over Xinjiang (新疆), Tibet (西藏) and Mongolia (蒙古).
During the 19th century, Qing control weakened. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, and Western penetration and influence. Britain's desire to continue its opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War (鴉片戰爭) erupted in 1840. Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, thereupon forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong (香港) was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking (南京條約). In addition, the Taiping Rebellion (太平天國) (1851–1864) and the Boxer Rebellion (義和團之亂) occurred in this century. In many ways the rebellions and the treaties the Qing were forced to sign with the imperialist powers are symptomatic of the inability of the Chinese government to respond adequately to the challenging conditions facing China in the 19th century.
Modern Era
The two Opium wars and the opium trade were costly outcomes for the Qing dynasty and the Chinese people. The Qing imperial treasury was declared bankrupt twice arising from indemnities incurred in the Opium wars and the large outflow of silver due to the opium trade (in tens of billions of ounces). China suffered two extreme famines exactly twenty years after each opium war in the 1860s and 1880s, and the Qing imperial dynasty was ineffective in helping the population. Socially these events had a profound impact as it challenged the hegemony that the Chinese had enjoyed in Asia for centuries. As a result, the country was in a state of turmoil.
A large rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, involved around a third of China falling under control of the Taiping Tianguo, a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan. Only after fourteen years were the Taipings finally crushed - the Taiping army was destroyed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. In total between twenty million and fifty million lives were lost, making it the second deadliest war in human history.
The Qing officials were slow to adopt modernity and suspicious of social and technological advances that they viewed as a threat to their absolute control over China. As an example, gunpowder had been widely used by the army of the Song and Ming Dynasties, then was forbidden by the Qing rulers after they took over China.[citation needed] Therefore, the dynasty was ill-equipped to handle the Western encroachment. Western powers did intervene militarily to quell domestic chaos, such as the Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion (義和團起義). General Gordon, later killed in the siege of Khartoum, Sudan, was often credited with having saved the Qing dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.
By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. This undermined the credibility of the Qing regime and, spearheaded by local initiatives by provincial leaders and gentry, contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. The Qing Dynasty under the Emperor Guangxu (光緒皇帝/清德宗) proceeded to deal with the problem of modernization through the Self-Strengthening Movement (自強運動). However, between 1898 and 1908 the Empress Dowager Cixi had the reformist Guangxu imprisoned for being 'mentally disabled'. The Empress Dowager (慈禧太后), with the help of conservatives, initiated a military coup, effectively removed the young Emperor from power, and overturned most of the more radical reforms. He died one day before the death of the Empress Dowager (some believe Guangxu was poisoned by Cixi). Official corruption, cynicism, and imperial family quarrels made most of the military reforms useless. As a result, the Qing's "New Armies" were soundly defeated in the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).
At the start of the 20th century, the Boxer Rebellion threatened northern China. This was a conservative anti-imperialist movement that sought to return China to old ways. The Empress Dowager, probably seeking to ensure her continued grip on power, sided with the Boxers when they advanced on Beijing. In response the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China. Consisting of British, Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, US and Austrian troops, the alliance defeated the Boxers and demanded further concessions from the Qing government.
The Republic of China
Main article: History of the Republic of China
Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform and by China's weakness, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) —began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on October 10, 1911 in Wuhan (武漢). The provisional government of the Republic of China (中華民國) was formed in Nanjing on March 12, 1912 with Sun Yat-sen as President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision he would later regret). Yuan Shikai proceeded in the next few years to abolish the national and provincial assemblies and declared himself emperor in 1915. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates, and faced with the prospect of rebellion, Yuan abdicated and died shortly after in 1916, leaving a power vacuum in China. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the "warlords" when China was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.
A little noticed event (to the rest of the world) in 1919 would have long-term repercussions for the rest of Chinese history in the 20th century. This was the May Fourth Movement (五四運動). This movement began as a response to the insult imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I but became a protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst Chinese intellectuals was followed by the adoption of more radical lines of thought. This in turn planted the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century.
In the 1920s, Sun Yat-Sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China (CPC, 中國共產黨). After Sun's death from cancer in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT, 國民黨) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition (北伐). Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic (中華蘇維埃共和國), the CPC forces embarked on the Long March (長征) across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shanxi Province (陝西省延安市).
During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung, 毛澤東). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-1945), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) portion of World War II. The war between the two parties resumed following the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CPC occupied most of the country. (see Chinese Civil War)
Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his government to Taiwan in 1949 and his Nationalist Party would control the island as well as a few neighboring islands until democratic elections in the late 1990s. Since then the political status of Taiwan has always been under dispute.
The present
The History of the People's Republic of China contains the details between 1949 and the present
See also: People's Republic of China and Political status of Taiwan
With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) (中華人民共和國) on October 1, 1949, China was divided once again according to the claims of that government. However, the actual political and legal status of Taiwan is disputed. Since the 1990s, the Republic of China government which governs Taiwan along with associated islands as well as some small islands off the coast of Fujian has been pushing to gain international recognition, while the People's Republic of China vehemently opposes foreign involvement, and insists that foreign relations not deviate from the One-China policy.
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