Page 117 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1894 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

One of the wrought-iron
arches of a bridge over the
Rhine at Coblenzin the late
1800s. The bridge is over
300 meters with three spans
of about 100 meters each.

them, allowing Europeans to come ashore for trade and French, Dutch and English trading companies soon trans-
sometimes paying them tribute. formed themselves into local rulers. Ensuing armed strug-
Overall effects were especially catastrophic in the gles made the Dutch supreme in Indonesia and the
Americas and among other previously isolated popula- English in India by 1763. Penetration of the Muslim
tions. That was largely because unfamiliar lethal dis- heartlands was slower but after Napoleon’s invasion of
eases brought by European seamen wreaked havoc on Egypt in 1798–1799, the Ottoman Empire and other
such populations, totally lacking, as they were, in Muslim states found it impossible to keep Europeans
acquired resistances to all the newly arrived infections. from demanding and getting trade and other privileges.
Drastic depopulation ensued, allowing newcomers from East Asians held out until first the Chinese (1839) and
Europe, together with large numbers of slaves imported then the Japanese (1854) saw their best efforts to keep
from Africa to transform the culture and character of Europeans at arm’s length crumble under the threat of
American populations. Similar destruction and replace- naval guns.Thereafter, efforts to transform old ways and
ment took place in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania somehow catch up with European power by appropriat-
some centuries later. ing at least some European skills and ideas prevailed
The peoples of Eurasia and most of Africa were already throughout the non-European world.
disease-experienced, thanks to long-standing transport By that time, however, European intruders had ac-
connections overland and by sea. Nonetheless, Eurasia quired new advantages by using newly invented
and Africa were profoundly affected too by the onset of steamships and railroads to transcend older limits.
global seafaring.To put it in a nutshell: as coastal contacts Steam engines, fired by burning coal in the 19th cen-
became more and more significant for trade, for war and tury, and oil-burning internal combustion motors in the
for exchanges of skill and ideas, the Eurasian continent twentieth century provided far greater energy for trans-
was in effect turned inside out. Previously, China, India port, carrying greater loads much faster and far more
and the Muslim heartlands of western Asia had to con- predictably.
centrate attention on their land frontiers. Cavalry tactics, For ocean distances, practicable steamships dated from
dating back to about 750 BCE, gave steppe nomads 1819 when a steam-assisted sailing ship first crossed the
superior mobility with the result that adjacent farming Atlantic. Rapid development ensued, featuring a sudden
populations suffered frequent raids and occasional con- increase in size after 1858 (when iron construction
quests across the next two millennia. Defending, negoti- replaced wooden hulls), and a subsequent race to speed
ating, and competing against nomad states and armies up Atlantic crossings that reduced them to less than a
was correspondingly critical for farmers of the Eurasian week by the 1930s.
fringe lands.The Chinese government’s decision to with- For river transport, shallow-draft flat-bottomed steam-
draw from the Indian Ocean in 1433 demonstrated that boats with paddle wheels amidships flourished mightily
concern, only to open China to harassment from the sea for half a century after 1807, when Robert Fulton made
when Portuguese ships showed up along the South his successful run up the Hudson River. Steamboats,
China coast in 1513 and swiftly elbowed their way however, suffered eclipse in the United States after the
ashore at Macao by the 1540s. 1860s, since railroads proved faster and more conven-
India, Java and other Southeast Asian lands also ient. Nevertheless, they remained of critical importance
allowed Europeans to set up fortified trading forts; and on African rivers and in parts of Asia where railroads