Volume I—A To Elba (continued 17)

M. E. G. Duff, Studies in European Politics, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 33.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1853. Commercial Treaty with the German Zollverein.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1853-1856. Attitude in the Crimean War.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1856-1859. The war in Italy with Sardinia and France. Reverses at Magenta and Solferino. Peace of Villafranca. Surrender of Lombardy.

"From the wars of 1848-9 the King of Sardinia was looked upon by the moderate party as the champion of Italian freedom. Charles Albert had failed: yet his son would not, and indeed could not, go back, though, when he began his reign, there were many things against him. … Great efforts were made to win him over to the Austrian party, but the King was neither cast down by defeat and distrust nor won over by soft words. He soon showed that, though he had been forced to make a treaty with Austria, yet he would not cast in his lot with the oppression of Italy. He made Massimo d'Azeglio his chief Minister, and Camillo Benso di Cavour his Minister of Commerce. With the help of these two men he honestly carried out the reforms which had been granted by his father, and set new ones on foot. … The quick progress of reform frightened Count Massimo d'Azeglio. He retired from office in 1853, and his place was taken by Count Cavour, who made a coalition with the democratic party in Piedmont headed by Urbano Rattazzi. The new chief Minister began to work not only for the good of Piedmont but for Italy at large. The Milanese still listened to the hopes which Mazzini held out, and could not quietly hear their subjection. Count Cavour indignantly remonstrated with Radetzky for his harsh government. … The division and slavery of Italy had shut her out from European politics. Cavour held that, if she was once looked upon as an useful ally, then her deliverance might be hastened by foreign interference. The Sardinian army had been brought into good order by Alfonso della Marmora; and was ready for action. In 1855, Sardinia made alliance with England and France, who were at war with Russia; for Cavour looked on that power as the great support of the system of despotism on the Continent, and held that it was necessary for Italian freedom that Russia should be humbled. The Sardinian army was therefore sent to the Crimea, under La Marmora, where it did good service in the battle of Tchernaya. … The next year the Congress of Paris was held to arrange terms of peace between the allies and Russia, and Cavour took the opportunity of laying before the representatives of the European powers the unhappy state of his countrymen. … In December, 1851, Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, the President of the French Republic, seized the government, and the next year took the title of Emperor of the French. He was anxious to weaken the power of Austria, and at the beginning of 1859 it became evident that war would soon break out. As a sign of the friendly feeling of the French Emperor towards the Italian cause, his cousin, Napoleon Joseph, married Clotilda, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel. Count Cavour now declared that Sardinia would make war on Austria, unless a separate and national government was granted to Lombardy and Venetia, and unless Austria promised to meddle no more with the rest of Italy. On the other hand, Austria demanded the disarmament of Sardinia. The King would not listen to this demand, and France and Sardinia declared war against Austria. The Emperor Napoleon declared that he would free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic. … The Austrian army crossed the Ticino, but was defeated by the King and General Cialdini. The French victory of Magenta, on June 4th forced the Austrians to retreat from Lombardy. … On June 24th the Austrians, who had crossed the Mincio, were defeated at Solferino by the allied armies of France and Sardinia. It seemed as though the French Emperor would keep his word. But he found that if he went further, Prussia would take up the cause of Austria, and that he would have to fight on the Rhine as well as on the Adige. When, therefore, the French army came before Verona, a meeting was arranged between the two Emperors. This took place at Villafranca, and there Buonaparte, without consulting his ally, agreed with Francis Joseph to favour the establishment of an Italian Confederation. …Austria gave up to the King of Sardinia Lombardy to the west of Mincio. But the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were to return to their States. The proposed Confederation was never made, for the people of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna sent to the King to pray that they might be made part of his Kingdom, and Victor Emmanuel refused to enter on the scheme of the French Emperor. In return for allowing the Italians of Central Italy to shake off the yoke, Buonaparte asked for Savoy and Nizza. … The King … consented to give up the 'glorious cradle of his Monarchy' in exchange for Central Italy."

W. A. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: J. W. Probyn, Italy from 1815 to 1890, chapter 9-10.

C. de Mazade, Life of Count Cavour, chapter 2-7.

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859, and 1859-1861.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1862-1866. The Schleswig-Holstein question. Quarrel with Prussia. The humiliating Seven Weeks War.

Conflict with Prussia grew out of the complicated Schleswig-Holstein question, reopened in 1862 and provisionally settled by a delusive arrangement between Prussia and Austria, into which the latter was artfully drawn by Prince Bismarck.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862, and GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

{232}

No sooner was the war with Denmark over, than "Prussia showed that it was her intention to annex the newly acquired duchies to herself. This Austria could not endure, and accordingly, in 1866, war broke out between Austria and Prussia. Prussia sought alliance with Italy, which she stirred up to attack Austria in her Italian possessions. The Austrian army defeated the Italian at Eustazza [or Custozza (see ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866)]; but the fortunes of war were against them in Germany. Allied with the Austrians were the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Würtembergers, Baden and Hesse, and Hanover. The Prussians advanced with their chief army into Bohemia with the utmost rapidity, dreading lest the Southern allies should march north to Hanover, and cut the kingdom in half, and push on to Berlin. The Prussians had three armies, which were to enter Bohemia and effect a junction. The Elbe army under the King, the first army under Prince Frederick Charles, and the second army under the Crown Prince. The Elbe army advanced across Saxony by Dresden. The first army was in Lusatia, at Reichenberg, and the second army in Silesia at Heisse. They were all to meet at Gitschin. The Austrian army under General Benedek was at Königgrätz, in Eastern Bohemia. … As in the wars with Napoleon, so was it now; the Austrian generals … never did the right thing at the right moment. Benedek did indeed march against the first army, but too late, and when he found it was already through the mountain door, he retreated, and so gave time for the three armies to concentrate upon him. The Elbe army and the first met at Münchengratz, and defeated an Austrian army there, pushed on, and drove them back out of Gitschin on Königgrätz. … The Prussians pushed on, and now the Elbe army went to Smidar, and the first army to Horzitz, whilst the second army, under the Crown Prince, was pushing on, and had got to Gradlitz. The little river Bistritz is crossed by the high road to Königgrätz. It runs through swampy ground, and forms little marshy pools or lakes. To the north of Königgrätz a little stream of much the same character dribbles through bogs into the Elbe. … But about Chlum, Nedelist and Lippa is terraced high ground, and there Benedek planted his cannon. The Prussians advanced from Smidar against the left wing of the Austrians, from Horzitz against the centre, and the Crown Prince was to attack the right wing. The battle began on the 3d of July, at 7 o'clock in the morning, by the simultaneous advance of the Elbe and the first army upon the Bistritz. At Sadowa is a wood, and there the battle raged most fiercely. … Two things were against the Austrians; first, the incompetence of their general, and, secondly, the inferiority of their guns. The Prussians had what are called needle-guns, breach-loaders, which are fired by the prick of a needle, and for the rapidity with which they can be fired far surpassed the old-fashioned muzzle-loaders used by the Austrians. After this great battle, which is called by the French and English the battle of Sadowa (Sadowa (o Breve), not Sadowa (o Macron), as it is erroneously pronounced), but which the Germans call the battle of Königgrätz, the Prussians marched on Vienna, and reached the Marchfeld before the Emperor Francis Joseph would come to terms. At last, on the 23d of August, a peace which gave a crushing preponderance in Germany to Prussia, was concluded at Prague."

S. Baring-Gould, The Story of Germany, pages 390-394.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866. The War in Italy. Loss of Venetia.

See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867. Concession of nationality to Hungary. Formation of the dual Austro-Hungarian Empire.

"For twelve years the name of Hungary, as a State, was erased from the map of Europe. Bureaucratic Absolutism ruled supreme in Austria, and did its best to obliterate all Hungarian institutions. Germanisation was the order of the day, the German tongue being declared the exclusive language of official life as well as of the higher schools. Government was carried on by means of foreign, German, and Czech officials. No vestige was left, not only of the national independence, but either of Home Rule or of self-government of any sort; the country was divided into provinces without regard for historical traditions; in short, an attempt was made to wipe out every trace denoting the existence of a separate Hungary. All ranks and classes opposed a sullen passive resistance to these attacks against the existence of the nation; even the sections of the nationalities which had rebelled against the enactments of 1848, at the instigation of the reactionary Camarilla, were equally disaffected in consequence of the short-sighted policy of despotical centralisation. … Finally, after the collapse of the system of Absolutism in consequence of financial disasters and of the misfortunes of the Italian War of 1859, the Hungarian Parliament was again convoked; and after protracted negotiations, broken off and resumed again, the impracticability of a system of provincial Federalism having been proved in the meantime, and the defeat incurred in the Prussian War of 1866 having demonstrated the futility of any reconstruction of the Empire of Austria in which the national aspirations of Hungary were not taken into due consideration—an arrangement was concluded under the auspices of Francis Deák, Count Andrássy, and Count Beust, on the basis of the full acknowledgment of the separate national existence of Hungary, and of the continuity of its legal rights. The idea of a centralised Austrian Empire had to give way to the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which is in fact an indissoluble federation of two equal States, under the common rule of a single sovereign, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, each of the States having a constitution, government, and parliament of its own, Hungary especially retaining, with slight modifications, its ancient institutions remodelled in 1848. The administration of the foreign policy, the management of the army, and the disbursement of the expenditure necessary for these purposes, were settled upon as common affairs of the entire monarchy, for the management of which common ministers were instituted, responsible to the two delegations, co-equal committees of the parliaments of Hungary and of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) provinces. Elaborate provisions were framed for the smooth working of these common institutions, for giving weight to the constitutional influence, even in matters of common policy, of the separate Cisleithanian and Hungarian ministries, and for rendering their responsibility to the respective Parliaments an earnest and solid reality. {233} The financial questions pending in the two independent and equal States were settled by a compromise; measures were taken for the equitable arrangement of all matters which might arise in relation to interests touching both States, such as duties, commerce, and indirect taxation, all legislation on these subjects taking place by means of identical laws separately enacted by the Parliament of each State. … Simultaneously with these arrangements the political differences between Hungary and Croatia were compromised by granting provincial Home Rule to the latter. … Thus the organisation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on the basis of dualism, and the compromise entered into between the two halves composing it, whilst uniting for the purposes of defence the forces of two States of a moderate size and extent into those of a great empire, able to cope with the exigencies of an adequate position amongst the first-class Powers of Europe, restored also to Hungary its independence and its unfettered sovereignty in all internal matters."

A. Pulszky, Hungary (National Life and Thought, lecture 3).

"The Ausgleich, or agreement with Hungary, was arranged by a committee of 67 members of the Hungarian diet, at the head of whom was the Franklin of Hungary, Francis Deák, the true patriot and inexorable legist, who had taken no part in the revolutions, but who had never given up one of the smallest of the rights of his country. … On the 8th of June [1867], the emperor Francis Joseph was crowned with great pomp at Pesth. On the 28th of the following June, he approved the decisions of the diet, which settled the position of Hungary with regard to the other countries belonging to his majesty, and modified some portions of the laws of 1848. … Since the Ausgleich the empire has consisted of two parts. … For the sake of clearness, political language has been increased by the invention of two new terms, Cisleithania and Transleithania, to describe the two groups, separated a little below Vienna by a small affluent of the Danube, called the Leitha—a stream which never expected to become so celebrated."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 35.

ALSO IN: Francis Deák, A Memoir, chapters 26-31.

Count von Beust, Memoirs, volume 2, chapter 38.

L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 5.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1887. The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its new national life. Its difficulties and promises. Its ambitions and aims in Southeastern Europe.

"Peace politicians may say that a war always does more harm than good to the nations which engage in it. Perhaps it always does, at any rate, morally speaking, to the victors: but that it does not to the vanquished, Austria stands as a living evidence. Finally excluded from Italy and Germany by the campaign of 1866, she has cast aside her dreams of foreign domination, and has set herself manfully to the task of making a nation out of the various conflicting nationalities over which she presides. It does not require much insight to perceive that as long as she held her position in Germany this fusion was hopeless. The overwhelming preponderance of the German element made any approach to a reciprocity of interests impossible. The Germans always were regarded as sovereigns, the remaining nationalities as subjects; it was for these to command, for those to obey. In like manner, it was impossible for the Austrian Government to establish a mutual understanding with a population which felt itself attracted—alike by the ties of race, language, and geographical position—to another political union. Nay more, as long as the occupation of the Italian provinces remained as a blot on the Imperial escutcheon, it was impossible for the Government to command any genuine sympathy from any of its subjects. But with the close of the war with Prussia these two difficulties—the relations with Germany and the relations with Italy—were swept away. From this time forward Austria could appear before the world as a Power binding together for the interests of all, a number of petty nationalities, each of which was too feeble to maintain a separate existence. In short, from the year 1866 Austria had a raison d'être, whereas before she had none. … Baron Beust, on the 7th of February, 1867, took office under Franz Joseph. His programme may be stated as follows. He saw that the day of centralism and imperial unity was gone past recall, and that the most liberal Constitution in the world would never reconcile the nationalities to their present position, as provinces under the always detested and now despised Empire. But then came the question—Granted that a certain disintegration is inevitable, how far is this disintegration to go? Beust proposed to disarm the opposition of the leading nationality by the gift of an almost complete independence, and, resting on the support thus obtained, to gain time for conciliating the remaining provinces by building up a new system of free government. It would be out of place to give a detailed account of the well-known measure which converted the 'Austrian empire' into the 'Austro-Hungarian monarchy.' It will be necessary, however, to describe the additions made to it by the political machinery. The Hungarian Reichstag was constructed on the same principle as the Austrian Reichsrath. It was to meet in Pesth, as the Reichsrath at Vienna, and was to have its own responsible ministers. From the members of the Reichsrath and Reichstag respectively were to be chosen annually sixty delegates to represent Cisleithanian and sixty to represent Hungarian interests—twenty being taken in each case from the Upper, forty from the Lower House. These two 'Delegations,' whose votes were to be taken, when necessary, collectively, though each Delegation sat in a distinct chamber, owing to the difference of language, formed the Supreme Imperial Assembly, and met alternate years at Vienna and Pesth. They were competent in matters of foreign policy, in military administration, and in Imperial finance. At their head stood three Imperial ministers—the Reichskanzler, who presided at the Foreign Office, and was ex officio Prime Minister, the Minister of War, and the Minister of Finance. These three ministers were independent of the Reichsrath and Reichstag, and could only be dismissed by a vote of want of confidence on the part of the Delegations. The 'Ausgleich' or scheme of federation with Hungary is, no doubt, much open to criticism, both as a whole and in its several parts. It must always be borne in mind that administratively and politically it was a retrogression. {234} At a time in which all other European nations—notably North Germany—were simplifying and unifying their political systems, Austria was found doing the very reverse. … The true answer to these objections is, that the measure of 1867 was constructed to meet a practical difficulty. Its end was not the formation of a symmetrical system of government, but the pacification of Hungary. … The internal history of the two halves of the empire flows in two different channels. Graf Andrassy, the Hungarian Premier, had a comparatively easy task before him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the predominance of the Magyars in Hungary was more assured than that of the Germans in Cisleithania. It is true that they numbered only 5,000,000 out of the 16,000,000 inhabitants; but in these 5,000,000 were included almost all the rank, wealth, and intelligence of the country. Hence they formed in the Reichstag a compact and homogeneous majority, under which the remaining Slovaks and Croatians soon learnt to range themselves. In the second place, Hungary had the great advantage of starting in a certain degree afresh. Her government was not bound by the traditional policy of former Vienna ministries, and … it had managed to keep its financial credit unimpaired. In the third place, as those who are acquainted with Hungarian history well know, Parliamentary institutions had for a long time flourished in Hungary. Indeed the Magyars, who among their many virtues can hardly be credited with the virtue of humility, assert that the world is mistaken in ascribing to England the glory of having invented representative government, and claim this glory for themselves. Hence one of the main difficulties with which the Cisleithanian Government had to deal was already solved for Graf Andrassy and his colleagues."—Austria since Sadowa (Quarterly Review, volume 131, pages 90-95).—"It is difficult for anyone except an Austro-Hungarian statesman to realise the difficulties of governing the Dual Monarchy. Cisleithania has, as is well-known, a Reichsrath and seventeen Provincial Diets. The two Austrias, Styria, Carinthia, and Salzburg present no difficulties, but causes of trouble are abundant in the other districts. The Emperor will probably end by getting himself crowned King of Bohemia, although it will be difficult for him to lend himself to a proscription of the German language by the Tsechs, as he has been forced by the Magyars to lend himself to the proscription in parts of Hungary of Rouman and of various Slavonic languages. But how far is this process to continue? The German Austrians are as unpopular in Istria and Dalmatia as in Bohemia; and Dalmatia is also an ancient kingdom. These territories were originally obtained by the election of the King of Hungary to the crown of the tripartite kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia. Is 'Ferencz Jozsef' to be crowned King of Dalmatia? And is Dalmatia to have its separate Ministry and its separate official language, and its completely separate laws? And what then of Fiume, the so-called Hungarian port? Then, again, Galicia is also an ancient kingdom, although it has at other times formed part of Poland; and the Emperor is King of Galicia, as he is King of Bohemia and Dalmatia. Is he to be crowned King of Galicia? And if so, is the separate existence of Galicia to be a Polish or a Ruthenian existence, or, indeed, a Jewish? for the Jews are not only extraordinarily powerful and numerous there, but are gaining ground day by day. The Ruthenians complain as bitterly of being bullied by the Poles in Galicia as the Croats complain of the Magyars. Even here the difficulties are not ended. The Margraviate of Moravia contains a large Tsech population, and will have to be added to the Bohemian kingdom. Bukowina may go with Galicia or Transylvania, Austrian Silesia may be divided between the Tsechs of Bohemia and Moravia on the one part, and the Poles or Ruthenians or Jews of Galicia on the other. But what is to become of that which, with the most obstinate disregard of pedants, I intend to continue to call the Tyrol? Trieste must go with Austria and Salzburg, and the Northern Tyrol and Styria and Carinthia no doubt; but it is not difficult to show that Austria would actually be strengthened by giving up the Southern Tyrol, where the Italian people, or at least the Italian language, is gaining ground day by day. There really seems very little left of the integrity of the Austrian Empire at the conclusion of our survey of its constituent parts. Matters do not look much better if we turn to Trans-Leithania. Hungary has its Reichstag (which is also known by some terrible Magyar name), its House of Representatives, and its House of Magnates, and, although there are not so many Provincial Diets as in Austria, Slavonia and the Banat of Croatia possess a Common Diet with which the Magyars are far from popular; and the Principality of Transylvania also possessed separate local rights, for trying completely to suppress which the Magyars are at present highly unpopular. The Principality, although under Magyar rule, is divided between 'Saxons' and Roumans, who equally detest the Magyars, and the Croats and Slovenes who people the Banat are Slavs who also execrate their Ugrian rulers, inscriptions in whose language are defaced whenever seen. Croatia is under-represented at Pest, and says that she goes unheard, and the Croats, who have partial Home Rule without an executive, ask for a local executive as well, and demand Fiume and Dalmatia. If we look to the numbers of the various races, there are in Austria of Germans and Jews about 9,000,000 to about 13,000,000 Slavs and a few Italians and Roumans. There are in the lands of the Crown of Hungary 2,000,000 of Germans and Jews, of Roumans nearly 3,000,000, although the Magyars only acknowledge 2,500,000, and of Magyars and Slavs between five and six millions apiece. In the whole of the territories of the Dual Monarchy it will be seen that there are 18,000,000 of Slavs and only 17,000,000 of the ruling races—Germans, Jews, and Magyars—while between three and four millions of Roumans and Italians count along with the Slav majority as being hostile to the dominant nationalities. It is difficult to exaggerate the gravity for Austria of the state of things which these figures reveal."

The Present Position of European Polities (Fortnightly Review, April, 1887).

{235}

"In past times, when Austria had held France tight bound between Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, she had aspired to a dominant position in Western Europe; and, so long as her eyes were turned in that direction, she naturally had every interest in preserving the Ottoman Empire intact, for she was thus guaranteed against all attacks from the south. But, after the loss of her Italian possessions in 1805, and of part of Croatia in 1809, after the disasters of 1849, 1859 and 1866, she thought more and more seriously of indemnifying herself at the expense of Turkey. It was moreover evident that, in order to paralyse the damaging power of Hungary, it was essential for her to assimilate the primitive and scattered peoples of Turkey, accustomed to centuries of complete submission and obedience, and form thus a kind of iron band which should encircle Hungary and effectually prevent her from rising. If, in fact, we glance back at the position of Austria in 1860, and take the trouble carefully to study the change of ideas and interests which had then taken place in the policy of France and of Russia, the tendencies of the strongly constituted nations who were repugnant to the authority and influence of Austria, the basis of the power of that empire, and, finally, the internal ruin with which she was then threatened, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that Austria, by the very instinct of self-preservation, was forced to turn eastwards and to consider how best she might devour some, at least, of the European provinces of Turkey. Austrian statesmen have been thoroughly convinced of this fact, and, impelled by the instinct above-mentioned, have not ceased carefully and consistently to prepare and follow out the policy here indicated. Their objects have already been partially attained by the practical annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 [see TURKS: A. D. 1878]; and it was striking to observe with what bitter feeling and resentment this measure was looked upon at the time by the Hungarian section of the empire. … Russia has never made any secret of her designs upon Turkey; she has, indeed, more than once openly made war in order to carry them out. But Austria remains a fatal obstacle in her path. Even as things at present stand, Austria, by her geographical position, so commands and dominates the Russian line of operations that, once the Danube passed, the Russians are constantly menaced by Austria on the flank and rear. … And if this be true now, how much more true would it be were Austria to continue her march eastwards towards Salonica. That necessarily, at some time or other, that march must be continued may be taken for almost certain; but that Austria has it in her power to commence it for the present, cannot, I think, be admitted. She must further consolidate and make certain of what she has. Movement now would bring upon her a struggle for life or death—a struggle whose issue may fairly be said, in no unfriendly spirit to Austria, to be doubtful. With at home a bitterly discontented Croatia, strong Pan-slavistic tendencies in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, a Greek population thoroughly disaffected, and a Hungary whose loyalty is doubtful, she would have to deal beyond her frontiers with the not contemptible armies, when combined, of Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, whose aspirations she would be asphyxiating for ever, with a bitterly hostile population in Macedonia, with the whole armed force of Turkey, and with the gigantic military power of Russia; whilst it is not fantastic to suppose that Germany would be hovering near ready to pounce on her German provinces when the 'moment psychologique' should occur. With such a prospect before her, it would be worse than madness for Austria to move until the cards fell more favourably for her."

V. Caillard, The Bulgarian Imbroglio (Fortnightly Review, December, 1885).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1878. The Treaty of Berlin. Acquisition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

—————AUSTRIA: End—————

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867.

AUTERI, The.

See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

AUTUN: Origin.

See GAULS.

AUTUN: A. D. 287. Sacked by the Bagauds.

See BAGAUDS.

—————AUTUN: End—————

AUVERGNE, Ancient. The country of the Arverni.

See ÆDUI; also GAULS.

AUVERGNE, The Great Days of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1665.

AUXILIUM.

See TALLAGE.

AVA.

See INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.

AVALON.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655; and MARYLAND: A. D. 1632.

AVARICUM.

See BOURGES, ORIGIN OF.

AVARS, The.

The true Avars are represented to have been a powerful Turanian people who exercised in the sixth century a wide dominion in Central Asia. Among the tribes subject to them was one called the Ogors, or Ouigours, or Ouiars, or Ouar Khouni, or Varchonites (these diverse names have been given to the nation) which is supposed to have belonged to the national family of the Huns. Some time in the early half of the sixth century, the Turks, then a people who dwelt in the very center of Asia, at the foot of the Altai mountains, making their first appearance in history as conquerors, crushed and almost annihilated the Avars, thereby becoming the lords of the Ouigours, or Ouar Khouni. But the latter found an opportunity to escape from the Turkish yoke. "Gathering together their wives and their children, their flocks and their herds, they turned their waggons towards the Setting Sun. This immense exodus comprised upwards of 200,000 persons. The terror which inspired their flight rendered them resistless in the onset; for the avenging Turk was behind their track. They overturned everything before them, even the Hunnic tribes of kindred origin, who had long hovered on the north-east frontiers of the Empire, and, driving out or enslaving the inhabitants, established themselves in the wide plains which stretch between·the Volga and the Don. In that age of imperfect information they were naturally enough confounded with the greatest and most formidable tribe of the Turanian stock known to the nations of the West. The report that the Avars had broken loose from Asia, and were coming in irresistible force to overrun Europe, spread itself all along both banks of the Danube and penetrated to the Byzantine court. With true barbaric cunning, the Ouar Khouni availed themselves of the mistake, and by calling themselves Avars largely increased the terrors of their name and their chances of conquest." The pretended Avars were taken into the pay of the Empire by Justinian and employed against the Hun tribes north and east of the Black Sea. {236} They presently acquired a firm footing on both banks of the Danube, and turned their arms against the Empire. The important city of Sirmium was taken by them after an obstinate siege and its inhabitants put to the sword. Their ravages extended over central Europe to the Elbe, where they were beaten back by the warlike Franks, and, southwards, through Moesia, Illyria, Thrace, Macedonia and Greece, even to the Peloponnesus. Constantinople itself was threatened more than once, and in the summer of 626, it was desperately attacked by Avars and Persians in conjunction (see ROME: A. D. 565-628), with disastrous results to the assailants. But the seat of their Empire was the Dacian country—modern Roumania, Transylvania and part of Hungary—in which the Avars had helped the Lombards to crush and extinguish the Gepidæ. The Slavic tribes which, by this time, had moved in great numbers into central and south-eastern Europe, were largely in subjection to the Avars and did their bidding in war and peace. "These unfortunate creatures, of apparently an imperfect, or, at any rate, imperfectly cultivated intelligence, endured such frightful tyranny from their Avar conquerors, that their very name has passed into a synonyme for the most degraded servitude."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4.

AVARS: 7th Century. The Slavic Revolt.

The Empire of the Avars was shaken and much diminished in the Seventh Century by an extensive rising of their oppressed Slavic subjects, roused and led, it is said, by a Frank merchant, or adventurer, named Samo, who became their king. The first to throw off the yoke were a tribe called the Vendes, or Wendes, or Venedi, in Bohemia, who were reputed to be half-castes, resulting from intercourse between the Avar warriors and the women of their Slavic vassals. Under the lead of Samo, the Wendes and Slovenes or Slavonians drove the Avars to the east and north; and it seems to have been in connection with this revolution that the Emperor Heraclius induced the Serbs or Servians and Croats—Slavic tribes of the same race and region—to settle in depopulated Dalmatia. "'From the year 630 A. D.' writes M. Thierry, 'the Avar people are no longer mentioned in the annals of of the East; the successors of Attila no longer figure beside the successors of Constantine. It required new wars in the West to bring upon the stage of history the khan and his people.' In these wars [of Pepin and Charlemagne] they were finally swept off from the roll of European nations."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4.

AVARS: A. D. 791-805. Conquest by Charlemagne.

"Hungary, now so called, was possessed by the Avars, who, joining with themselves a multitude of Hunnish tribes, accumulated the immense spoils which both they themselves and their equally barbarous predecessors had torn from the other nations of Europe. … They extended their limits towards Lombardy, and touched upon the very verge of Bavaria. … Much of their eastern frontier was now lost, almost without a struggle on their part, by the rise of other barbarous nations, especially the various tribes of Bulgarians." This was the position of the Avars at the time of Charlemagne, whom they provoked by forming an alliance with the ambitious Duke of Bavaria, Tassilo,—most obstinate of all who resisted the Frank king's imperious and imperial rule. In a series of vigorous campaigns, between 791 and 797 Charlemagne crushed the power of the Avars and took possession of their country. The royal "ring" or stronghold—believed to have been situated in the neighborhood of Tatar, between the Danube and the Theiss—was penetrated, and the vast treasure stored there was seized. Charlemagne distributed it with a generous hand to churches, to monasteries and to the poor, as well as to his own nobles, servants and soldiers, who are said to have been made rich. There were subsequent risings of the Avars and wars, until 805, when the remnant of that almost annihilated people obtained permission to settle on a tract of land between Sarwar and Haimburg, on the right bank of the Danube, where they would be protected from their Slavonian enemies. This was the end of the Avar nation.

G. P. R. James, History of Charlemagne, books 9 and 11.

ALSO IN: J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, book 2, chapter 7.

—————AVARS: End—————

AVARS, The Rings of the. The fortifications of the Avars were of a peculiar and effective construction and were called Hrings, or Rings. "They seem to have been a series of eight or nine gigantic ramparts, constructed in concentric circles, the inner one of all being called the royal circle or camp, where was deposited all the valuable plunder which the warriors had collected in their expeditions. The method of constructing these ramparts was somewhat singular. Two parallel rows of gigantic piles were driven into the ground, some twenty feet apart. The intervening space was filled with stones, or a species of chalk, so compacted as to become a solid mass. The sides and summit were covered with soil, upon which were planted trees and shrubs, whose interlacing branches formed an impenetrable hedge."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 9.

AVEBURY.

See ABURY.

AVEIN, Battle of (1635).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

AVENTINE, The.

See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.

AVERNUS, Lake and Cavern.

A gloomy lake called Avernus, which filled the crater of an extinct volcano, situated a little to the north of the Bay of Naples, was the object of many superstitious imaginations among the ancients. "There was a place near Lake Avernus called the prophetic cavern. Persons were in attendance there who called up ghosts. Anyone desiring it came thither, and, having killed a victim and poured out libations, summoned whatever ghost he wanted. The ghost came, very faint and doubtful to the sight, but vocal and prophetic; and, having answered the questions, went off."

Maximus Tyrius, quoted by C. C. Felton, in Greece, Ancient and Modern, c. 2, lecture 9.

See, also, CUMÆ: AND BAIÆ.

AVERYSBORO, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: THE CAROLINAS).

AVIGNON: 10th Century. In the Kingdom of Arles.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843-933.

AVIGNON: A. D. 1226. Siege by Louis VIII.

See ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1217-1229.

{237}

AVIGNON: A. D. 1309-1348. Made the seat of the Papacy. Purchase of the city by Clement V.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

AVIGNON: A. D. 1367-1369. Temporary return of Urban V. to Rome.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.

AVIGNON: A. D. 1377-1417. Return of Pope Gregory XI. to Rome. Residence of the anti-popes of the great Schism.

See PAPACY: A. D.1377-1417.

AVIGNON: A. D. 1790-1791. Revolution and Anarchy. Atrocities committed. Reunion with France decreed.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.

AVIGNON: A. D. 1797. Surrendered to France by the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D: 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

AVIGNON: A. D. 1815. Possession by France confirmed.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

—————AVIGNON: End—————

AVIONES, The.

"The Aviones were a Suevic clan. They are mentioned by Tacitus in connexion with the Reudigni, Angli, Varini, Eudoses, Suardones and Nuithones, all Suevic clans. These tribes must have occupied Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Sleswick-Holstein, the Elbe being their Eastern boundary. It is, however, impossible to define their precise localities."

A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, Minor Works of Tacitus, Geographical Notes to the Germany.

AVIS, The House of.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1383-1385.

AVIS, Knights of.

This is a Portuguese military-religions order which originated about 1147 during the wars with the Moors, and which formerly observed the monastic rule of St. Benedict. It became connected with the order of Calatrava in Spain and received from the latter its property in Portugal. Pope Paul III. united the Grand Mastership to the Crown of Portugal.

F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders, part 4.

See, also, PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

AVITUS, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 455-456.

AVVIM, The. The original inhabitants of the south-west corner of Canaan, from which they were driven by the Philistines.

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 1, section 4.

AYACUCHO, Battle of (1824).

See PERU: A. D. 1820-1826.

AYLESBURY ELECTION CASE.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1703.

AYLESFORD, Battle of (A. D. 455).

The first battle fought and won by the invading Jutes after their landing in Britain under Hengest and Horsa. It was fought at the lowest ford of the river Medway.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

AYMARAS, The.

See PERU: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

AYOUBITE OR AIYUBITE DYNASTY.

See SALADIN, THE EMPIRE OF.

AZINCOUR (AGINCOURT), Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415.

AZOF OR AZOV: A. D. 1696. Taken by the Russians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

AZOF: A. D. 1711. Restoration to the Turks.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.

AZOF: A. D. 1736-1739. Captured by the Russians. Secured to them by the Treaty of Belgrade.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.

—————AZOF: End—————

AZTEC.

See MEXICO, ANCIENT; and A. D. 1325-1502; also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS.

AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING.

"No nation ever reduced it [pictography] more to a system. It was in constant use in the daily transactions of life. They [the Aztecs] manufactured for writing purposes a thick coarse paper from the leaves of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is made of a single sheet, 12 to 15 inches wide, and often 60 or 70 feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in such a manner that on opening there are two pages exposed to view. Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had come from the shop of a skilful book binder. They also covered buildings, tapestries and scrolls of parchment with these devices. … What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some instances, their figures were not painted, but actually printed with movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only. In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic notation. They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent sounds of spoken language. The symbol is often not connected with the idea, but with the word. The mode in which this is done corresponds precisely to that of the rebus. It is a simple method, readily suggesting itself. In the middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for the same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in Mexico at the same time—the writing of proper names. For example, the English family Bolton was known in heraldry by a 'tun' transfixed by a 'bolt.' Precisely so the Mexican Emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the Aztec manuscripts under the figure of a serpent, coatl,' pierced by obsidian knives, 'ixtli.' … As a syllable could be expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures sometimes represent their full phonetic value, sometimes only that of their initial sound, and as universally the attention of the artist was directed less to the sound than to the idea, the didactic painting of the Mexicans, whatever it might have been to them, is a sealed book to us, and must remain so in great part. … Immense masses of such documents were stored in the imperial archives of ancient Mexico. Torquemada asserts that five cities alone yielded to the Spanish governor on one requisition no less than 16,000 volumes or scrolls! Every leaf was destroyed. Indeed, so thorough and wholesale was the destruction of these memorials, now so precious in our eyes, that hardly enough remain to whet the wits of antiquaries. In the libraries of Paris, Dresden, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a sufficient number to make us despair of deciphering them, had we for comparison all which the Spaniards destroyed. Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the peninsula of Yucatan, would seem to have approached nearest a true phonetic system. They had a regular and well understood alphabet of 27 elementary sounds, the letters of which are totally different from those of any other nation, and evidently originated with themselves. But besides these they used a large number of purely conventional symbols, and moreover were accustomed constantly to employ the ancient pictographic method in addition as a sort of commentary on the sound represented. … With the aid of this alphabet, which has fortunately been preserved, we are enabled to spell out a few words on the Yucatecan manuscripts and façades, but thus far with no positive results. The loss of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the way of such studies. In South America, also, there is said to have been a nation who cultivated the art of picture-writing, the Panos, on the river Ucayale."

D. G. Brinton, The Myths of the New World, chapter 1.

—————AZTEC: End—————

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B.

BABAR, King of Ferghana, A. D. 1494-; King of Kabul, A. D. 1504-; Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1526-1530.

BABENBERGS, The.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

BABYLON: The City.

"The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width and two hundred in height. … And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mould dug out of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought. As fast as they dug the moat the soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks, and when a sufficient number were completed they baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building, and began with bricking the borders of the moat, after which they proceeded to construct the wall itself, using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the brick. On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and side posts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates at the point where the city of the same name stands, eight days' journey from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this river. The city is divided into two portions by the river which runs through the midst of it. This river is the Euphrates. … The city wall is brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream; thence, from the corners of the wall, there is carried along each bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks. The houses are mostly three and four stories high; the streets all run in straight lines; not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which lead down to the water side. At the river end of these cross streets are low gates in the fence that skirts the stream, which are, like the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water. The outer wall is the main defence of the city. There is, however, a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength. The centre of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure, two furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. … On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple."

Herodotus, History, translated by G. Rawlinson, book 1, chapters 178-181.

According to Ctesias, the circuit of the walls of Babylon was but 360 furlongs. The historians of Alexander agreed nearly with this. As regards the height of the walls, "Strabo and the historians of Alexander substitute 50 for the 200 cubits of Herodotus, and it may therefore be suspected that the latter author referred to hands, four of which were equal to the cubit. The measure, indeed, of 50 fathoms or 200 royal cubits for the walls of a city in a plain is quite preposterous. … My own belief is that the height of the walls of Babylon did not exceed 60 or 70 English feet."

H. C. Rawlinson, note to above.-

See, also, BABYLONIA: B. C. 625-539.

BABYLON OF THE CRUSADERS, The.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1248-1254.

BABYLONIA, Primitive.

(So much new knowledge of the ancient peoples in the East has been and is being brought to light by recent search and study, and the account of it in English historical literature is so meagre as yet, that there seems to be good reason for deferring the treatment of these subjects, for the most part, to a later volume of this work. The reader is referred, therefore, to the article "Semites," in the hope that, before its publication is reached, in the fourth or fifth volume, there will be later and better works to quote from on all the subjects embraced. Terrien de Lacouperie's interesting theory, which is introduced below, in this place, is questioned by many scholars; and Professor Sayce, whose writings have done much to popularize the new oriental studies, seems to go sometimes in advance of the sure ground.)

The Sumirians, inhabitants of the Shinar of the Old Testament narrative, and Accadians, who divided primitive Babylonia between them, "were overrun and conquered by the Semitic Babylonians of later history, Accad being apparently the first half of the country to fall under the sway of the new comers. It is possible that Casdim, the Hebrew word translated Chaldees or Chaldeans in the authorized version, is the Babylonian 'casidi' or conquerors, a title which continued to cling to them in consequence of their conquest. The Accadiaus had been the inventors of the pictorial hieroglyphics which afterwards developed into the cuneiform or wedge-shaped writing; they had founded the great cities of Chaldea, and had attained to a high degree of culture and civilization. Their cities possessed libraries, stocked with books, written partly on papyrus, partly on clay, which was, while still soft, impressed with characters by means of a metal stylus. {239} The books were numerous, and related to a variety of subjects. … In course of time, however, the two dialects of Sumir and Accad ceased to be spoken; but the necessity for learning them still remained, and we find, accordingly, that down to the latest days of both Assyria and Babylonia, the educated classes were taught the old extinct Accadian, just as in modern Europe they are taught Latin."

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 2.

"Since Sumir, the Shinar of the Bible, was the first part of the country occupied by the invading Semites, while Accad long continued to be regarded as the seat of an alien race, the language and population of primitive Chaldea have been named Accadian by the majority of Assyrian scholars. The part played by these Accadians in the intellectual history of mankind is highly important. They were the earliest civilizers of Western Asia, and it is to them that we have to trace the arts and sciences, the religious traditions and the philosophy not only of the Assyrians, but also of the Phœnicians, the Aramæans, and even the Hebrews themselves. It was, too, from Chaldea that the germs of Greek art and of much of the Greek pantheon and mythology originally came. Columnar architecture reached its first and highest development in Babylonia; the lions that still guard the main entrance of Mykenæ are distinctly Assyrian in character; and the Greek Herakles with his twelve labours finds his prototype in the hero of the great Chaldean epic. It is difficult to say how much of our present culture is not owed to the stunted, oblique-eyed people of ancient Babylonia; Jerusalem and Athens are the sacred cities of our modern life; and both Jerusalem and Athens were profoundly influenced by the ideas which had their first starting-point in primæval Accad. The Semite has ever been a trader and an intermediary, and his earliest work was the precious trade in spiritual and mental wares. Babylonia was the home and mother of Semitic culture and Semitic inspiration; the Phœnicians never forgot that they were a colony from the Persian Gulf, while the Israelite recounted that his father Abraham had been born in Ur of the Chaldees. Almost the whole of the Assyrian literature was derived from Accad, and translated from the dead language of primitive Chaldea."

A. H. Sayce, Babylonian Literature, pages 6-7.

A. H. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 2.

"The place of China in the past and future is not that which it was long supposed to be. Recent researches have disclosed that its civilization, like ours, was variously derived from the same old focus of culture of south-western Asia. … It was my good fortune to be able to show, in an uninterrupted series of a score or so of papers in periodicals, of communications to the Royal Asiatic Society and elsewhere, published and unpublished, and of contributions to several works since April 1880, downwards, that the writing and some knowledge of arts, science and government of the early Chinese, more or less enumerated below, were derived from the old civilization of Babylonia, through the secondary focus of Susiana, and that this derivation was a social fact, resulting not from scientific teaching but from practical intercourse of some length between the Susian confederation and the future civilizers of the Chinese, the Bak tribes, who, from their neighbouring settlements in the N., moved eastwards at the time of the great rising of the XXIII. century B. C. Coming again in the field, Dr. J. Edkins has joined me on the same line."

Terrien de Lacouperie, Babylonia and China (Academy, Aug. 7, 1880).

"We could enumerate a long series of affinities between Chaldean culture and Chinese civilization, although the last was not borrowed directly. From what evidence we have, it seems highly probable that a certain number of families or of tribes, without any apparent generic name, but among which the Kutta filled an important position, came to China about the year 2500 B. C. These tribes, which came from the West, were obliged to quit the neighbourhood, probably north of the Susiana, and were comprised in the feudal agglomeration of that region, where they must have been influenced by the Akkado-Chaldean culture."

Terrien de Lacouperie, Early History of Chinese Civilization, page 32.

See, also, CHINA: THE ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE.

BABYLONIA: The early (Chaldean) monarchy.

"Our earliest glimpse of the political condition of Chaldea shows us the country divided into numerous small states, each headed by a great city, made famous and powerful by the sanctuary or temple of some particular deity, and ruled by a patesi, a title which is now thought to mean priest-king, i. e., priest and king in one. There can be little doubt that the beginning of the city was every where the temple, with its college of ministering priests, and that the surrounding settlement was gradually formed by pilgrims and worshippers. That royalty developed out of the priesthood is also more than probable. … There comes a time when for the title of patesi is substituted that of king. … It is noticeable that the distinction between the Semitic newcomers and the indigenous Shumiro-Accadians continues long to be traceable in the names of the royal temple-builders, even after the new Semitic idiom, which we call the Assyrian, had entirely ousted the old language. … Furthermore, even superficial observation shows that the old language and the old names survive longest in Shumir,—the South. From this fact it is to be inferred with little chance of mistake that the North,—the land of Accad,— was earlier Semitized, that the Semitic immigrants established their first headquarters in that part of the country, that their power and influence thence spread to the South. Fully in accordance with these indications, the first grand historical figure that meets us at the threshold of Chaldean history, dim with the mists of ages and fabulous traditions, yet unmistakably real, is that of the Semite Sharrukin, king of Accad, or Agade, as the great Northern city came to be called—more generally known in history under the corrupt modern reading of Sargon, and called Sargon I., 'the First,' to distinguish him from a very famous Assyrian monarch of the same name who reigned many centuries later. As to the city of Agade, it is no other than the city of Accad mentioned in Genesis x, 10. It was situated close to the Euphrates on a wide canal just opposite Sippar, so that in time the two cities came to be considered as one double city, and the Hebrews always called it 'the two Sippars'—Sepharvaim, which is often spoken of in the Bible. … The tremendously ancient date of 3800 B. C. is now generally accepted for Sargon of Agade—perhaps the remotest authentic date yet arrived at in history."

Z. A. Ragozin, Story of Chaldea, chapter 4.

{240}

"A horde of Cassites or Kossæans swept down from the mountains of Northern Elam under their leader, Khammuragas; Accad was conquered, a foreign dynasty established in the land, and the capital transferred from Agade to Babylon. Babylon now became a city of importance for the first time; the rank assigned to it in the mythical age was but a reflection of the position it held after the Cassite conquest. The Cassite dynasty is probably the Arabian dynasty of Berosos. … A newly-found inscription of Nabonidos makes the date [of its advent] B. C. 3750 [foot-note]. … The first care of Khammuragas, after establishing himself in Accad, was to extend his sway over the southern kingdom of Sumer as well. … Khammuragas became king of the whole of Babylonia. From this time onward the country remained a united monarchy. The Cassite dynasty must have lasted for several centuries, and probably included more than one line of kings. … It was under the Cassite dynasty that the kingdom of Assyria first took its rise,— partly, perhaps, in consequence of the Asiatic conquests of the Egyptian monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty. … In B. C. 1400 the Cassite king married an Assyrian princess. Her son, Kara-Murdas, was murdered by the party opposed to Assyrian influence, but the usurper, Nazi-bugas, was quickly overthrown by the Assyrians, who placed a vassal-prince on the throne. This event may be considered the turning-point in the history of the kingdoms of the Tigris and Euphrates; Assyria henceforth takes the place of the worn-out monarchy of Babylonia, and plays the chief part in the affairs of Western Asia until the day of its final fall. In little more than a hundred years later the Assyrians were again in Babylonia, but this time as avowed enemies to all parties alike; Babylon was captured by the Assyrian monarch Tiglath-Adar in B. C. 1270, and the rule of the Cassite dynasty came to an end."

A. H. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 2.

ALSO IN: G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Chaldea, chapter 8.

See, also, ASSYRIA.

BABYLONIA: B. C. 625-539. The later Empire.

For more than six centuries after the conquest of B. C. 1270, Babylonia was obscured by Assyria. During most of that long period, the Chaldean kingdom was subject to its northern neighbor and governed by Assyrian viceroys. There were frequent revolts and some intervals of independence; but they were brief, and the political life of Babylonia as a distinct power may be said to have been suspended from 1270 until 625 B. C., when Nabopolassar, who ruled first as the viceroy of the Assyrian monarch, threw off his yoke, took the attributes of sovereignty to himself, and joined the Medes in extinguishing the glory of Nineveh. "The Assyrian Empire was now shared between Media and Babylon. Nabucudur-utser, or Nebuchadrezzar, Nabopolassar's eldest son, was the real founder of the Babylonian empire. The attempt of Pharaoh Necho to win for Egypt the inheritance of Assyria was overthrown at the battle of Carchemish, and when Nebuchadrezzar succeeded his father in B. C. 604, he found himself the undisputed lord of Western Asia. Palestine was coerced in 602, and the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 laid a way open for the invasion of Egypt, which took place twenty years later. Tyre also underwent a long siege of thirteen years, but it is doubtful whether it was taken after all. Babylon was now enriched with the spoils of foreign conquest. It owed as much to Nebuchadrezzar as Rome owed to Augustus. The buildings and walls with which it was adorned were worthy of the metropolis of the world. The palace, now represented by the Kasr mound, was built in fifteen days, and the outermost of its three walls was seven miles in circuit. Hanging gardens were constructed for Queen Amytis, the daughter of the Median prince, and the great temple of Bel was roofed with cedar and overlaid with gold. The temple of the Seven Lights, dedicated to Nebo at Borsippa by an early king, who had raised it to a height of forty-two cubits, was completed, and various other temples were erected on a sumptuous scale, both in Babylon and in the neighbouring cities, while new libraries were established there. After a reign of forty-two years, six months and twenty-one days, Nebuchadrezzar died (B. C. 562), and left the crown to his son Evil-Merodach, who had a short and inactive reign of three years and thirty-four days, when he was murdered by his brother-in-law, Nergal-sharezer, the Neriglissar of the Greeks. … The chief event of his reign of four years and four months was the construction of a new palace. His son, who succeeded him, was a mere boy, and was murdered after a brief reign of four months. The power now passed from the house of Nabopolassar,—Nabu-nahid or Nabonidos, who was raised to the throne, being of another family. His reign lasted seventeen years and five months, and witnessed the end of the Babylonian empire,"—which was overthrown by Cyrus the Great (or Kyros), B. C. 539 [see PERSIA: B. C. 543-521], and swallowed up in the Persian empire which he founded.

A. H. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 2.

ALSO IN: M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 4, chapter 15.

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: The Fourth Monarchy, chapter 8.

BABYLONIAN JEWS.

See JEWS: B. C. 536-A. D. 50, and A. D. 200-400.

BABYLONIAN TALENT.

See TALENT.

BABYLONIAN TALMUD, The.

See TALMUD.

"BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY" OF THE POPES.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

BACCALAOS, OR BACALHAS, OR BACALHAO COUNTRY.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.

BACCHIADÆ.

See CORINTH.

BACCHIC FESTIVALS.

See DIONYSIA.

BACENIS, Forest of.

See HERCYNIAN FOREST.

BACON'S REBELLION.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1660-1677.

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BACTRIA.

"Where the edge [of the tableland of Iran] rises to the lofty Hindu Kush, there lies on its northern slope a favored district in the region of the Upper Oxus. … On the banks of the river, which flows in a north-westerly direction, extend broad mountain pastures, where support is found in the fresh mountain air for numerous herds of horses and sheep, and beneath the wooded hills are blooming valleys. On these slopes of the Hindu Kush, the middle stage between the table-land and the deep plain of the Caspian Sea, lay the Bactrians—the Bakhtri of the Achaemenids, the Bakhdhi of the Avesta. … In ancient times the Bactrians were hardly distinguished from nomads; but their land was extensive and produced fruits of all kinds, with the exception of the vine. The fertility of the land enabled the Hellenic princes to make great conquests."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 6. chapter 2.

The Bactrians were among the people subjugated by Cyrus the Great and their country formed part of the Persian Empire until the latter was overthrown by Alexander (see MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 330-323). In the division of the Macedonian conquests, after Alexander's death, Bactria, with all the farther east, fell to the share of Seleucus Nicator and formed part of what came to be called the kingdom of Syria. About 256 B. C. the Bactrian province, being then governed by an ambitious Greek satrap named Diodotus, was led by him into revolt against the Syrian monarchy, and easily gained its independence, with Diodotus for its king (see SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224). "The authority of Diodotus was confirmed and riveted on his subjects by an undisturbed reign of eighteen years before a Syrian army even showed itself in his neighbourhood. … The Bactrian Kingdom was, at any rate at its commencement, as thoroughly Greek as that of the Seleucidæ." "From B. C. 206 to about B. C. 185 was the most flourishing period of the Bactrian monarchy, which expanded during that space from a small kingdom to a considerable empire"—extending over the greater part of modern Afghanistan and across the Indus into the Punjaub. But meantime the neighboring Parthians, who threw off the Seleucid yoke soon after the Bactrians had done so, were growing in power and they soon passed from rivalry to mastery. The Bactrian kingdom was practically extinguished about 150 B. C. by the conquests of the Parthian Mithridates I., "although Greek monarchs of the Bactrian series continued masters of Cabul and Western India till about B. C. 126."

G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapters 3-5.

BADAJOS: The Geographical Congress (1524).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.

BADEN: Early Suevic population.

See SUEVI.

BADEN: A. D. 1801-1803. Acquisition of territory under the Treaty of Luneville.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

BADEN: A. D. 1805-1806. Aggrandized by Napoleon. Created a Grand Duchy. Joined to the Confederation of the Rhine.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806, and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

BADEN: A. D. 1813. Abandonment of the Rhenish Confederacy and the French Alliance.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

BADEN: A. D. 1849. Revolution suppressed by Prussian troops.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1850.

BADEN: A. D. 1866. The Seven Weeks War. Indemnity and territorial cession to Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

BADEN: A. D. 1870-1871. Treaty of Union with the Germanic Confederation, soon transformed into the German Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER), and 1871.

—————BADEN: End—————

BADEN, OR RASTADT, Treaty of (1714).

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

BADR, OR BEDR, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

BÆCULA, Battle of.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

BÆRSÆRK.

See BERSERKER.

BÆTICA.

The ancient name of the province in Spain which afterwards took from the Vandals the name of Andalusia.

See SPAIN: B. C. 218-25, and A. D. 428; also TURDETANI, and VANDALS: A. D. 428.

BÆTIS, The.

The ancient name of the Guadalquiver river in Spain.

BAGACUM.

See NERVII.

BAGAUDS, Insurrection of the (A. D. 287).

The peasants of Gaul, whose condition had become very wretched during the distractions and misgovernment of the third century, were provoked to an insurrection, A. D. 287, which was general and alarming. It was a rising which seems to have been much like those that occurred in France and England eleven centuries later. The rebel peasants were called Bagauds,—a name which some writers derive from the Celtic word "bagad" or "bagat," signifying "tumultuous assemblage." They sacked and ruined several cities,—taking Autun after a siege of seven months,—and committed many terrible atrocities. The Emperor Maximian—colleague of Diocletian,—succeeded, at last, in suppressing the general outbreak, but not in extinguishing it every where. There were traces of it surviving long afterwards.

P. Godwin, History of France, volume 1: Ancient Gaul, book 2, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: W. T. Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, chapter 4.

See, also, DEDITITIUS.

BAGDAD, A. D. 763. The founding of the new capital of the Caliphs.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 763.

BAGDAD: A. D. 815-945. Decline of the Caliphate.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 815-945.

BAGDAD: A. D. 1050. In the hands of the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1004-1063.

BAGDAD: A. D. 1258. The Fall of the Caliphate. Destruction of the city by the Mongols.

In 1252, on the accession of Mangu Khan, grandson of Jingis Khan, to the sovereignty of the Mongol Empire [see MONGOLS], a great Kuriltai or council was held, at which it was decided to send an expedition into the West, for two purposes: (1), to exterminate the Ismaileans or Assassins, who still maintained their power in northern Persia; (2), to reduce the Caliph of Bagdad to submission to the Mongol supremacy. The command of the expedition was given to Mangu's brother Khulagu, or Houlagou, who performed his appointed tasks with thoroughness and unmerciful resolution. In 1257 he made an end of the Assassins, to the great relief of the whole eastern world, Mahometan and Christian. In 1258 he passed on to Bagdad, preceded by an embassy which summoned the Caliph to submit, to raze the walls of Bagdad, to give up his vain pretensions to the sovereignty of the Moslem world, and to acknowledge the Great Khan for his lord. The feeble caliph and his treacherous and incapable ministers neither submitted nor made vigorous preparations for defence. As a consequence, Bagdad was taken after a siege which only excited the ferocity of the Mongols. They fired the city and slaughtered its people, excepting some Christians, who are said to have been spared through the influence of one of Khulagu's wives, who was a Nestorian. The sack of Bagdad lasted seven days. The number of the dead, we are told by Raschid, was 800,000. The caliph, Mostassem, with all his family, was put to death.

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1, pages 193-201.

—————BAGDAD: End—————

[Image] I. Asia Minor And The Balkan Peninsula Near The Close Of The Twelfth Century.

Byzantine Empire. Selj. Turks. Servia. Bulgaria. Cilician Armenia. Venetian Possessions. States Under Latin Rule. County Palatinate Of Cephalonia.

II ASIA MINOR AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA IN 1265 (SHOWING RESTORED BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND SURROUNDING STATES)

III ASIA MINOR.

IV TURKISH EMPIRE.

—————End—————

[Image: ASIA MINOR AND BALKAN PENINSULA.] [Image: TURKISH EMPIRE.]

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BAGDAD: A. D. 1258. (Continued)

For a considerable period before this final catastrophe, in the decline of the Seljuk Empire, the Caliphate at Bagdad had become once more "an independent temporal state, though, instead of ruling in the three quarters of the globe, the caliphs ruled only over the province of Irak Arabi. Their position was not unlike that of the Popes in recent times, whom they also resembled in assuming a new name, of a pious character, at their inauguration. Both the Christian and the Moslem pontiff was the real temporal sovereign of a small state; each claimed to be spiritual sovereign over the whole of the Faithful; each was recognized as such by a large body, but rejected by others. But in truth the spiritual recognition of the Abbaside caliphs was more nearly universal in their last age than it had ever been before." With the fall of Bagdad fell the caliphate as a temporal sovereignty; but it survived, or was resurrected, in its spiritual functions, to become merged, a little later, in the supremacy of the sultan of the Ottoman Turks. "A certain Ahmed, a real or pretended Abbasside, fled [from Bagdad] to Egypt, where he was proclaimed caliph by the title of Al Mostanser Billah, under the protection of the then Sultan Bibars. He and his successors were deemed, in spiritual things, Commanders of the Faithful, and they were found to be a convenient instrument both by the Mameluke sultans and by other Mahometan princes. From one of them, Bajazet the Thunderbolt received the title of Sultan; from another, Selim the Inflexible procured the cession of his claims, and obtained the right to deem himself the shadow of God upon earth. Since then, the Ottoman Padishah has been held to inherit the rights of Omar and of Haroun, rights which if strictly pressed, might be terrible alike to enemies, neutrals, and allies."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquest of the Saracens, lecture 4.

BAGDAD: A. D. 1393. Timour's pyramid of heads.

See TIMOUR.

BAGDAD: A. D. 1623-1638. Taken by the Persians and retaken by the Turks. Fearful slaughter of the inhabitants.

See TURKS: A. D. 1623-1640.

—————BAGDAD: End—————

BAGISTANA.

See BEHISTUN, ROCK OF.

BAGLIONI, The.

"The Baglioni first came into notice during the wars they carried on with the Oddi of Perugia in the 14th and 15th centuries. This was one of those duels to the death, like that of the Visconti with the Torrensi of Milan, on which the fate of so many Italian cities of the middle ages hung. The nobles fought; the townsfolk assisted like a Greek chorus, sharing the passions of the actors, but contributing little to the catastrophe. The piazza was the theatre on which the tragedy was played. In this contest the Baglioni proved the stronger, and began to sway the state of Perugia after the irregular fashion of Italian despots. They had no legal right over the city, no hereditary magistracy, no title of princely authority. The Church was reckoned the supreme administrator of the Perugian commonwealth. But in reality no man could set foot on the Umbrian plain without permission from the Baglioni. They elected the officers of state. The lives and goods of the citizens were at their discretion. When a Papal legate showed his face, they made the town too hot to hold him. … It was in vain that from time to time the people rose against them, massacring Pandolfo Baglioni on the public square in 1393, and joining with Ridolfo and Braccio of the dominant house to assassinate another Pandolfo with his son Niccolo in 1460. The more they were cut down, the more they flourished. The wealth they derived from their lordships in the duchy of Spoleto and the Umbrian hill-cities, and the treasures they accumulated in the service of the Italian republics, made them omnipotent in their native town. … From father to son they were warriors, and we have records of few Italian houses, except perhaps the Malatesti of Rimini, who equalled them in hardihood and fierceness. Especially were they noted for the remorseless vendette which they carried on among themselves, cousin tracking cousin to death with the ferocity and and craft of sleuth-hounds. Had they restrained these fratricidal passions, they might, perhaps, by following some common policy, like that of the Medici in Florence or the Bentivogli in Bologna, have successfully resisted the Papal authority, and secured dynastic sovereignty. It is not until 1495 that the history of the Baglioni becomes dramatic, possibly because till then they lacked the pen of Matarazzo. But from this year forward to their final extinction, every detail of their doings has a picturesque and awful interest. Domestic furies, like the revel descried by Cassandra above the palace of Mycenae, seem to take possession of the fated house; and the doom which has fallen on them is worked out with pitiless exactitude to the last generation."

J. A. Symonds, Sketches in Italy and Greece, pages 70-72.

BAGRATIDAE, The.

See ARMENIA: 12th-14th CENTURIES.

BAHAMA ISLANDS: A. D. 1492. Discovery by Columbus.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492.

BAHRITE SULTANS.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1250-1517.

BAIÆ.

Baiæ, in Campania, opposite Puteoli on a small bay near Naples, was the favorite watering place of the ancient Romans. "As soon as the reviving heats of April gave token of advancing summer, the noble and the rich hurried from Rome to this choice retreat; and here, till the raging dogstar forbade the toils even of amusement, they disported themselves on shore or on sea, in the thick groves or on the placid lakes, in litters and chariots, in gilded boats with painted sails, lulled by day and night with the sweetest symphonies of song and music, or gazing indolently on the wanton measures of male and female dancers. The bath, elsewhere their relaxation, was here the business of the day; … they turned the pools of Avernus and Lucrinus into tanks for swimming; and in these pleasant waters both sexes met familiarly together, and conversed amidst the roses sprinkled lavishly on their surface."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 40.

BAINBRIDGE, Commodore William, in the War of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

{243}

BAIREUTH, Creation of the Principality of.

See GERMANY: THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

Separation from the Electorate of Brandenburg.

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1417-1640.

—————BAIREUTH: End—————

BAJAZET I. Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1389-1402.

Bajazet II., A. D. 1481-1512.

BAKAIRI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS.

BAKER, Colonel Edward D., Killed at Ball's Bluff.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER: VIRGINIA).

BAKSAR, OR BAXAR, OR BUXAR, Battle of (1764).

See INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772.

BALACLAVA, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

BALANCE OF POWER.

In European diplomacy, a phrase signifying the policy which aimed at keeping an approximate equilibrium of power among the greater nations.

T. J. Lawrence, International Law, page 126.

BALBINUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 238.

BALBOA'S DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1513-1517.

BALCHITAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

BALDWIN OF FLANDERS, The Crusade of.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203.

Baldwin I., Latin Emperor at Constantinople (Romania), A. D. 1204-1205.

Baldwin II., A. D. 1237-1261.

BALEARIC ISLANDS: Origin of the Name.

"The name 'Baleares' was derived by the Greeks from 'ballein,' to throw; but the art was taught them by the Phœnicians, and the name is no doubt Phœnician."

J. Kenrick, Phœnicia, chapter 4.

For the chief incidents in the history of these islands,

See MINORCA and MAJORCA.

BALIA OF FLORENCE, The.

The chief instrument employed by the Medici to establish their power in Florence was "the pernicious system of the Parlamento and Balia, by means of which the people, assembled from time to time in the public square, and intimidated by the reigning faction, entrusted full powers to a select committee nominated in private by the chiefs of the great house. … Segni says: 'The Parlamento is a meeting of the Florentine people on the Piazza of the Signory. When the Signory has taken its place to address the meeting, the piazza is guarded by armed men, and then the people are asked whether they wish to give absolute power (Balia) and authority to the citizens named, for their good. When the answer, yes, prompted partly by inclination and partly by compulsion, is returned, the Signory immediately retires into the palace. This is all that is meant by this parlamento, which thus gives away the full power of effecting a change in the state."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age of the Despots, page 164, and foot-note.

See, also, FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427, and 1458-1469.

—————BALIA OF FLORENCE: End—————

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.

BALKAN: Ancient History.

The States of southeastern Europe, lately emancipated, for the most part, from the rule of the Turks, are so associated by a common history, although remarkably diverse in race, that it seems expedient to bring them for discussion together. They occupy mainly the regions known in Roman times as MOESIA, DACIA and ILLYRICUM, to which names the reader is referred for some account of the scanty incidents of their early history.

See, also, AVARS.

—————BALKAN: End—————

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[Image: Danubian And Balkan States]

Danubian And Balkan States

Showing Changes During The Present Century

The political condition in 1815 is shown by ROMAN LETTERS and this style of boundary:

All subsequent change, are shown by ITALIC LETTERS and this style of boundary:

The Bulgarian boundary according to the Treaty of San Stefano 1878 is shown thus:

—————Danubian And Balkan States: End—————

BALKAN: Races existing.

"In no part of Western Europe do we find districts inhabited by men differing in speech and national feeling, lying in distinct patches here and there over a large country. A district like one of our larger counties in which one parish, perhaps one hundred, spoke Welsh, another Latin, another English, another Danish, another Old French, another the tongue of more modern settlers, Flemings, Huguenots or Palatines, is something which we find hard to conceive, and which, as applied to our own land or to any other Western land, sounds absurd on the face of it. When we pass into South-eastern Europe, this state of things, the very idea of which seems absurd in the West, is found to be perfectly real. All the races which we find dwelling there at the beginning of recorded history, together with several races which have come in since, all remain, not as mere fragments or survivals, but as nations, each with its national language and national feelings, and each having its greater or less share of practical importance in the politics of the present moment. Setting aside races which have simply passed through the country without occupying it, we may say that all the races which have ever settled in the country are there still as distinct races. And, though each race has its own particular region where it forms the whole people or the great majority of the people, still there are large districts where different races really live side by side in the very way which seems so absurd when we try to conceive it in any Western country. We cannot conceive a Welsh, an English, and a Norman village side by side; but a Greek, a Bulgarian, and a Turkish village side by side is a thing which may be seen in many parts of Thrace. The oldest races in those lands, those which answer to Basques and Bretons in Western Europe, hold quite another position from that of Basques and Bretons in Western Europe. They form three living and vigorous nations, Greek, Albanian, and Rouman. They stand as nations alongside of the Slaves who came in later, and who answer roughly to the Teutons in the West, while all alike are under the rule of the Turk, who has nothing answering to him in the West. … When the Romans conquered the South-eastern lands, they found there three great races, the Greek, the Illyrian, and the Thracian. Those three races are all there still. The Greeks speak for themselves. The Illyrians are represented by the modern Albanians. The Thracians are represented, there seems every reason to believe, by the modern Roumans. Now had the whole of the South-eastern lands been inhabited by Illyrians and Thracians, those lands would doubtless have become as thoroughly Roman as the Western lands became. … But the position of the Greek nation, its long history and its high civilization, hindered this. {245} The Greeks could not become Romans in any but the most purely political sense. Like other subjects of the Roman Empire, they gradually took the Roman name; but they kept their own language, literature, and civilization. In short we may say that the Roman Empire in the East became Greek, and that the Greek nation became Roman. The Eastern Empire and the Greek-speaking lands became nearly coextensive. Greek became the one language of the Eastern Roman Empire, while those that spoke it still called themselves Romans. Till quite lately, that is till the modern ideas of nationality began to spread, the Greek-speaking subjects of the Turk called themselves by no name but that of Romans. … While the Greeks thus took the Roman name without adopting the Latin language, another people in the Eastern peninsula adopted both name and language, exactly as the nations of the West did. If, as there is good reason to believe, the modern Roumans represent the old Thracians, that nation came under the general law, exactly like the Western nations. The Thracians became thoroughly Roman in speech, as they have ever since kept the Roman name. They form in fact one of the Romance nations, just as much as the people of Gaul or Spain. … In short, the existence of a highly civilized people like the Greeks hindered in every way the influence of Rome from being so thorough in the East as it was in the West. The Greek nation lived on, and alongside of itself, it preserved the other two ancient nations of the peninsula. Thus all three have lived on to the present as distinct nations. Two of them, the Greeks and the Illyrians, still keep their own languages, while the third, the old Thracians, speak a Romance language and call themselves Roumans. … The Slavonic nations hold in the East a place answering to that which is held by the Teutonic nations in the West. … But though the Slaves in the East thus answer in many ways to the Teutons in the West, their position with regard to the Eastern Empire was not quite the same as that of the Teutons towards the Western Empire. … They learned much from the half Roman, half Greek power with which they had to do; but they did not themselves become either Greek or Roman, in the way in which the Teutonic conquerors in the Western Empire became Roman. … Thus, while in the West everything except a few survivals of earlier nations, is either Roman or Teutonic, in the East, Greeks, Illyrians, Thracians or Roumans, and Slaves, all stood side by side as distinct nations when the next set of invaders came, and they remain as distinct nations still. … There came among them, in the form of the Ottoman Turk, a people with whom union was not only hard but impossible, a people who were kept distinct, not by special circumstances, but by the inherent nature of the case. Had the Turk been other than what he really was, he might simply have become a new nation alongside of the other South-eastern nations. Being what he was the Turk could not do this. … The original Turks did not belong to the Aryan branch of mankind, and their original speech is not an Aryan speech. The Turks and their speech belong to altogether another class of nations and languages. … Long before the Turks came into Europe, the Magyars or Hungarians had come; and, before the Magyars came, the Bulgarians had come. Both the Magyars and the Bulgarians were in their origin Turanian nations, nations as foreign to the Aryan people of Europe as the Ottoman Turks themselves. But their history shows that a Turanian nation settling in Europe may either be assimilated with an existing European nation or may sit down as an European nation alongside of others. The Bulgarians have done one of these things; the Magyars have done the other; the Ottoman Turks have done neither. So much has been heard lately of the Bulgarians as being in our times the special victims of the Turk that some people may find it strange to hear who the original Bulgarians were. They were a people more or less nearly akin to the Turks, and they came into Europe as barbarian conquerors who were as much dreaded by the nations of South-eastern Europe as the Turks themselves were afterwards. The old Bulgarians were a Turanian people, who settled in a large part of the South-eastern peninsula, in lands which had been already occupied by Slaves. They came in as barbarian conquerors; but, exactly as happened to so many conquerors in Western Europe, they were presently assimilated by their Slavonic subjects and neighbours. They learned the Slavonic speech; they gradually lost all traces of their foreign origin. Those whom we now call Bulgarians are a Slavonic people speaking a Slavonic tongue, and they have nothing Turanian about them except the name which they borrowed from their Turanian masters. … The Bulgarians entered the Empire in the seventh century, and embraced Christianity in the ninth. They rose to great power in the South-eastern lands, and played a great part in their history. But all their later history, from a comparatively short time after the first Bulgarian conquest, has been that of a Slavonic and not that of a Turanian people. The history of the Bulgarians therefore shows that it is quite possible, if circumstances are favourable, for a Turanian people to settle among the Aryans of Europe and to be thoroughly assimilated by the Aryan nation among whom they settled."

E. A. Freeman, The Ottoman Power in Europe, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: R. G. Latham, The Nationalities of Europe.

BALKAN: 7th Century. (Servia, Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Montenegro.) The Slavonic settlement.

"No country on the face of our unfortunate planet has been oftener ravaged, no land so often soaked with the blood of its inhabitants. At the dawn of history Bosnia formed part of Illyria. It was said to have been already peopled by Slav tribes. Rome conquered all this region as far as the Danube, and annexed it to Dalmatia. Two provinces were formed, 'Dalmatia maritima,' and 'Dalmatia interna,' or 'Illyris barbara.' Order reigned, and as the interior communicated with the coast, the whole country flourished. Important ports grew upon the littoral. … At the fall of the Empire came the Goths, then the Avars, who, for two centuries, burned and massacred, and turned the whole country into a desert. … In 630 the Croats began to occupy the present Croatia, Slavonia, and the north of Bosnia, and in 640 the Servians, of the same race and language, exterminated the Avars and peopled Servia, Southern Bosnia, Montenegro and Dalmatia. The ethnic situation which exists to-day dates from this epoch."

E. de Laveleye, The Balkan Peninsula, chapter 3.

{246}

"Heraclius [who occupied the throne of the Eastern Empire at Constantinople from 610 to 642] appears to have formed the plan of establishing a permanent barrier in Europe against the encroachments of the Avars and Sclavonians. … To accomplish this object, Heraclius induced the Serbs, or Western Sclavonians, who occupied the country about the Carpathian mountains, and who had successfully opposed the extension of the Avar empire in that direction, to abandon their ancient seats, and move down to the South into the provinces between the Adriatic and the Danube. The Roman and Greek population of these provinces had been driven towards the seacoast by the continual incursions of the northern tribes, and the desolate plains of the interior had been occupied by a few Sclavonian subjects and vassals of the Avars. The most important of the western Sclavonian tribes who moved southward at the invitation of Heraclius were the Servians and Croatians, who settled in the countries still peopled by their descendants. Their original settlements were formed in consequence of friendly arrangements, and, doubtless, under the sanction of an express treaty; for the Sclavonian people of Illyria and Dalmatia long regarded themselves as bound to pay a certain degree of territorial allegiance to the Eastern Empire. … These colonies, unlike the earlier invaders of the Empire, were composed of agricultural communities. … Unlike the military races of Goths, Huns, and Avars, who had preceded them, the Servian nations increased and flourished in the lands which they had colonized; and by the absorption of every relic of the ancient population, they formed political communities and independent states, which offered a firm barrier to the Avars and other hostile nations. … The states which they constituted were of considerable weight in the history of Europe; and the kingdoms or bannats of Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Rascia and Dalmatia, occupied for some centuries a political position very similar to that now held by the secondary monarchical states of the present day."

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 4, section 6.

See, also, AVARS: THE BREAKING OF THEIR DOMINION; and SLAVONIC NATIONS: 6TH AND 7TH CENTURIES.

BALKAN: 7th-8th Centuries (Bulgaria). Vassalage to the Khazars.

See KHAZARS.

BALKAN: 9th Century (Servia). Rise of the Kingdom.

"At the period alluded to [the latter part of the ninth century] the Servians did not, like the rest of the Sclavonians, constitute a distinct state, but acknowledged the supremacy of the Eastern Roman Emperor: in fact the country they inhabited had, from ancient times, formed part of the Roman territory; and it still remained part of the Eastern Empire when the Western Empire was re-established, at the time of Charlemagne. The Servians, at the same period, embraced the Christian faith; but in doing so they did not subject themselves entirely, either to the empire or church of the Greeks. …. The Emperor … permitted the Servians to be ruled by native chiefs, solely of their own election, who preserved a patriarchal form of government. … In the eleventh century, the Greeks, despite of the stipulations they had entered into, attempted to take Servia under their immediate control, and to subject it to their financial system." The attempt met with a defeat which was decisive. "Not only did it put a speedy termination to the encroachment of the Court of Constantinople in imposing a direct government, but it also firmly established the princely power of the Grand Shupanes; whose existence depended on the preservation of the national independence. … Pope Gregory VII. was the first who saluted a Grand Shupane as King."

L. Von Ranke, History of Servia, chapter 1.

BALKAN: 9th-16th Centuries (Bosnia, Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia.) Conversion to Christianity. The Bogomiles. Hungarian crusades. Turkish conquest.

After the Slavonic settlement of Servia, Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia, for a time "the sovereignty of Byzantium was acknowledged. But the conversion of these tribes, of identical race, to two different Christian rites, created an antagonism which still exists. The Croats were converted first by missionaries from Rome; they thus adopted Latin letters and Latin ritual; the Servians, on the contrary, and consequently part of the inhabitants of Bosnia, were brought to Christianity by Cyril and Methodius, who, coming from Thessalonica, brought the characters and rites of the Eastern Church. About 860 Cyril translated the Bible into Slav, inventing an alphabet which bears his name, and which is still in use. … In 874 Budimir, the first Christian King of Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia, called a diet upon the plain of Dalminium, where he tried to establish a regular organization. It was about this time that the name Bosnia appeared for the first time. It is said to be derived from a Slav tribe coming originally from Thrace. In 905 Brisimir, King of Servia, annexed Croatia and Bosnia; but this union did not last long. The sovereignty of Byzantium ceased in these parts after the year 1000. It was gained by Ladislaus, King of Hungary, about 1091. In 1103 Coloman, King of Hungary, added the titles of 'Rex Ramæ' (Herzegovina), then of 'Rex Bosniæ.' Since then Bosnia has always been a dependence of the crown of Saint Stephen. … About this time some Albigenses came to Bosnia. who converted to their beliefs a large number of the people who were called Catare, in German Patarener. In Bosnia they received and adopted the name of Bogomile, which means 'loving God.' Nothing is more tragic than the history of this heresy. … They [the Bogomiles] became in Bosnia a chief factor, both of its history and its present situation. … The Hungarian Kings, in obedience to the Pope, ceaselessly endeavoured to extirpate them, and their frequent wars of extermination provoked the hatred of the Bosnians. … In 1238 the first great crusade was organized by Bela IV. of Hungary, in obedience to Pope Gregory VII. The whole country was devastated, and the Bogomiles nearly all massacred, except a number who escaped to the forests and mountains. In 1245 the Hungarian Bishop of Kalocsa himself led a second crusade. In 1280 a third crusade was undertaken by Ladislaus IV., King of Hungary, in order to regain the Pope's favour. … About the year 1300 Paul of Brebir, 'Banus Croatorum et Bosniæ dominus,' finally added Herzegovina to Bosnia. Under the Ban Stephen IV., the Emperor of Servia, the great Dushan, occupied Bosnia, but it soon regained its independence (1355), and under Stephen Tvartko, who took the title of king, the country enjoyed a last period of peace and prosperity. … {247} Before his death the Turks appeared on the frontiers. At the memorable and decisive battle of Kossovo [see TURKS: A. D. 1360-1389], which gave them Servia, 30,000 Bosnians were engaged, and, though retreating stopped the conqueror. Under Tvartko II., the second king, who was a Bogomile, Bosnia enjoyed some years' peace (1326-1443). Then followed [see TURKS: A. D. 1402-1451] a bloody interlude of civil war," which invited the Turks and prepared the way for them. "Mohammed II., who had just taken Constantinople (1453), advanced with a formidable army of 150,000 men, which nothing could resist. The country was laid waste: 30,000 young men were circumcised and enrolled amongst the janissaries; 200,000 prisoners were made slaves; the towns which resisted were burned; the churches turned into mosques, and the land confiscated by the conquerors (1463). … A period of struggle lasted from 1463 till the definite conquest in 1527 [see TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481]. … When the battle of Mohacz (August 29, 1526) gave Hungary to the Ottomans [see HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526] Jaitche, the last rampart of Bosnia, whose defence had inspired acts of legendary courage, fell in its turn in 1527. A strange circumstance facilitated the Mussulman conquest. To save their wealth, the greater number of magnates, and almost all the Bogomiles, who were exasperated by the cruel persecutions directed against them, went over to Islamism. From that time they became the most ardent followers of Mohammedanism, whilst keeping the language and names of their ancestors. They fought everywhere in the forefront of the battles which gained Hungary for the Turks." Within the present century the Bosnian Mussulmans have risen in arms "against all the reforms that Europe, in the name of modern principles, wrested from the Porte."