BRITAIN IN EUROPE

Part III

All Scripture references are to the Anglicised New International Version (NIV-UK) unless stated otherwise

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Revelation 21: 1, 2

WHEN DRIED, THE SMALL green fruits of the Piperaceae vine become dark and wrinkled. These blackened corns can be ground into a powder that has medicinal and culinary uses. Black pepper is perhaps the world’s most ubiquitous spice. A handy condiment on every tabletop, it adds heat and piquancy to everyday dishes. Wharfage records reveal that the East India Company imported nearly 3.2 tonnes of pepper into London in 1677.

Queen Elizabeth the First established the East India Company by Royal Charter in 1600. The Charter endowed the corporation with great mercantile and legal powers, such as land ownership, the power to raise rents, to franchise and to hold jurisdiction in its acquisitions. The Company was not a military enterprise, but it employed soldiers and its ships were armed. The Company was not directly controlled by the Crown, yet the Charter granted it the liberty to act in the nation’s interests.

The East India Company

The markets of Europe paid high prices for the spices and textiles of the Orient. Along the coasts of Africa and India, French, Portuguese, Dutch and English traders jostled for dominance. The East India Company strived for a monopoly over the trading stations in Asia. These early ventures realised huge profits and to maintain the Company’s ascendancy over the competition the use of force became inevitable.

The Battle of Plassey in 1757 established the East India Company as the supreme European trading organisation in India. Robert Clive commanded the forces that defeated France and its allies and subsequently the Company assumed control over the French markets and trading partners. The Royal Charter gave the East India Company the privilege to govern in the lands it acquired. Officers of the Company ruled the Indian provinces surrounding Madras, Calcutta and Bombay as if they were British territory. In the areas under its administration, the East India Company installed a form of civil government with courts, counsellors and an armed militia.

Jewel in the Crown

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 began among the native sepoy troops in British garrisons. The uprising lacked organisation and a coherent plan to defeat the British. The rebellion was put down with fierce reprisals. The fiasco led to the handover of Indian rule to Her Majesty’s Government in 1858. Queen Victoria, as Empress of India, presided over the re-organisation.

By trade, discovery and the trophies of war, Britain acquired the vast territories of Canada, Australia, India, Egypt and Sudan. The Empire also included many smaller countries and islands. This Commonwealth of nations traded with British markets at preferential rates. At the head of its own global market, Britain had an economic union that spanned the globe. London was the centre of world trade and banking. British mines and foundries produced more coal and steel than any other country. Half of the world’s merchant shipping belonged to Britain.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century Britain remained aloof from European affairs. Supported and satisfied by the Empire, Britain followed a policy of Splendid Isolation.[fn1]

Revolution in Europe

Meanwhile, Europe was in turmoil. The conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte had fragmented the European nations and after his defeat, France, Spain, Italy, Austria and the German states sought to re-assert their nationhood. The Industrial Revolution had increased Europe’s wealth and created an educated and affluent middle class. The writings of radical thinkers such as Hegel and Saint-Simon awakened many to new political ideas.

In 1848 revolutions erupted across Europe. Nationalist movements in France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Poland challenged the establishment and clamoured for reform. Rioters barricaded the streets of Paris, Prague and Vienna. Most of these uprisings were short-lived and within a year civil order was restored. In reaction to the unrest, several of the German states pressed for unification and after a short war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, Prussia emerged as the leader of the German confederation.

Franco-Prussian War

In fear of an aggressive Germany, France declared war on Prussia in 1871. Both sides were equipped with advanced weapons, such as breech-loading rifles and steel cannons. The Franco-Prussian war foreshadowed the Battles of the Somme and Passchendaele with its use of machine guns, trenches and heavy artillery, and drew on lessons learned from the American Civil War of a few years earlier. After ten months of fighting, the Prussian army besieged Paris and defeated France. The victory put the German federation at the centre of power in Europe. William I, Kaiser of Germany, appointed Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor of the German Empire.

Bismarck, an adroit statesman, sought to alleviate European tensions by a peaceful settlement with France and through alliances with Austria and Italy. The increased diplomacy after the Franco-Prussian war curbed territorial disputes and shifted belligerent ambitions abroad. France, Germany, Italy and Russia embarked on campaigns outside Europe after 1875.

Britain Entangled in Europe

During the next twenty years, over one quarter of the world’s land surface was seized by just six European nations.[fn2] European Imperialism brought Britain’s isolation to an end in 1902, when Britain signed the treaty with Japan to protect its interests in China against Russian expansion. By the early twentieth century, Bismarck’s strategy had consolidated Europe into the Central, Western and Eastern powers and the allied nations of Britain, France and Russia encircled Germany, Austria and Italy.

The assassination of Archduke Francis-Ferdinand in 1914 could have been resolved locally without a wider dispute. The involvement of Germany threatened the continent of Europe with hostilities. The engagement of Britain, and consequently the Empire, raised the scale of the conflict to a global war. The two World Wars, punctuated by a world-wide depression, stresses in Britain’s financial position, and the rise of American power, hastened the demise of Britain’s global influence. During the 1930s large parts of Britain’s Empire had been granted independence and many other territories pressed for self-rule. India, Ceylon, Burma and Pakistan became independent states in 1947.

A United States of Europe

Reflecting on the aftermath of the Second World War, and fearing the spread of atomic weapons, Winston Churchill proposed a United States of Europe in a speech given in Zurich in 1946. Churchill’s reasons were not political or economic, but moral. His views and experience made him the natural choice to be chairman of the Congress of Europe held in the Hague in 1948. The Congress initiated the modern European movement. A founding idea of the movement was that member states be prepared to exchange elements of sovereignty for a share in common institutions. The institutions discussed by the Congress included a European Assembly and a European Court of Human Rights.

The European movement advanced quickly towards a practical union of member countries after the Messina Conference in 1955. Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Within a year the six had formed the European Economic Community (EEC), whose policy was governed by a parliament and executive commission. By 1968 trade tariffs had been removed and the countries in the EEC prospered.

Britain courted EEC membership after 1958 but gave priority to relations with the United States. British entrance to the Community was rejected twice by France. Britain finally gained admission in 1973, reducing its special trade relations with Commonwealth countries. In 1986 Portugal and Spain joined the Community, bringing the membership to twelve. The economic success of the European Community was a material fact.

The reunification and prosperity of Europe following the devastating wars of 1914 and 1939 is historically unique, a significant transformation of nations with a long history of fighting into a peaceful co-operative in which victor and vanquished enjoy equal standing.

World Power

Now known as the European Union (EU), comprised of twenty-seven nations, the Community sports its own flag of twelve stars, symbolising the ideals of perfect unity among the peoples of Europe. Some see the union as symbolic of the new Jerusalem – the new world government promised in Revelation 21: 1, 2, quoted at the head of this article. Any parallel is superficial. Conflicting creeds and shrinking congregations demonstrate that the EU, bankrupt and prone to corruption, has largely abandoned its Christian heritage. The pooled wealth of the existing member states has not delivered the economic or moral regeneration that God has planned for mankind in His earthly kingdom to come.

But the European vision still has life, despite the financial troubles of the Eurozone. The EU remains the focus of hope for the Christian democratic parties seeking to put the principles of God’s kingdom into practice. Pope Benedict XVI in his 2009 Encyclical Charity in Truth declared the urgent need

to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. . . .[fn3]

The pontiff alludes to God’s promise and man’s desire for a just rule among the nations and the general desire for a golden age. Indeed, many states have sought to fulfil Biblical prophecy in their own way. Charlemagne, Imperial Britain and the United States have all aspired to global hegemony as a Divine right.

But events have yet to manifest the ultimate world power: God’s chosen people, Israel. The Bible prophesies that converted Israel will be the representative nation for God’s kingdom on earth, long awaited. Jerusalem will be the world’s capital (Micah 4: 2):

Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

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NOTES

Citations to Web pages are correct as of the dates retrieved, but sites may expire or be moved.

[fn1] ‘Splendid Isolation’ was first used by Sir Wilfred Laurier, a Canadian statesman. An overview of Britain’s policy is given by the Education Support Network which can be found here: -

[fn2] Norman Davies, Europe a History, (London: Pimlico; 1997), 10, p. 848.

[fn3] Pope Benedict released his encyclical on the eve of the G8 summit in Italy in 2009 and three days before a meeting with President Barack Obama. The papal booklet attacks unregulated capitalism and calls for reform of the United Nations. The entire text is available on the Vatican website:

<http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html> (retrieved 28 October 2011).

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