The fate of empires - Page 2

Monterrey · #1 06-26-2021, 05:34 PM

XXXIX Summary
As numerous points of interest have arisen
in the course of this essay, I close with a brief
summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.
(a) We do not learn from history because
our studies are brief and prejudiced.
(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years
emerges as the average length of national
greatness.
(c) This average has not varied for 3,000
years. Does it represent ten generations?
(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great
nations seem to be:
The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence.
(e) Decadence is marked by:
Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion.
(f) Decadence is due to:
Too long a period of wealth and power
Selfishness
Love of money
The loss of a sense of duty.
(g) The life histories of great states are
amazingly similar, and are due to internal
factors.
(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are
largely the result of external causes.
(i) History should be taught as the history
of the human race, though of course with
emphasis on the history of the student’s own
country.

Monterrey · #2 06-26-2021, 05:56 PM

Im having trouble finding links to I might just print here in order.

Monterrey · #3 06-26-2021, 06:07 PM

The Fate of Empires

Page 3

could be calculated with mathematical accuracy.

(2) Nevertheless, it is suggested that there is sufficient resemblance between the life
periods of these different empires to justify further study.
(3) The division of Rome into two periods may be thought unwarranted. The first, or
republican, period dates from the time when Rome became the mistress of Italy, and ends with the accession of Augustus. The imperial period extends from the accession of
Augustus to the death of Marcus Aurelius. It is true that the empire survived nominally
for more than a century after this date, but it did so in constant confusion, rebellions, civil wars and barbarian invasions.
(4) Not all empires endured for their full lifespan. The Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar, for example, was overthrown by Cyrus, after a life duration of only some seventy-four years.
(5) An interesting deduction from the figures seems to be that the duration of empires
does not depend on the speed of travel or the nature of weapons. The Assyrians marched on foot and fought with spears and bow and arrows. The British used artillery, railways and ocean-going ships. Yet the two empires lasted for approximately the same periods.
There is a tendency nowadays to say that this is the jet-age, and consequently there is
nothing for us to learn from past empires. Such an attitude seems to be erroneous.
(6) It is tempting to compare the lives of empires with those of human beings. We
may choose a figure and say that the average life of a human being is seventy years. Not all human beings live exactly seventy years. Some die in infancy, others are killed in
accidents in middle life, some survive to the age of eighty or ninety. Nevertheless, in spite of such exceptions, we are justified in saying that seventy years is a fair estimate of the average person’s expectation of life.
(7) We may perhaps at this stage be allowed to draw certain conclusions:
(a) In spite of the accidents of fortune, andthe apparent circumstances of the human
race at different epochs, the periods ofduration of different empires at varied
epochs show a remarkable similarity.
(b) Immense changes in the technology of transport or in methods of warfare do not
seem to affect the life-expectation of an empire.
(c) The changes in the technology of transport and of war have, however, affected the
shape of empires. The Assyrians, marching on foot, could only conquer their neighbours, who were accessible by land—the Medes, the Babylonians, the Persians and
the Egyptians. The British, making use of ocean-going ships, conquered many countries and subcontinents, which were accessible to them by water—North America, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand—but they never succeeded in conquering their
neighbours, France, Germany and Spain. But, although the shapes of the Assyrian
and the British Empires were entirely different, both lasted about the same
length of time.
III The human yardstick
What then, we may ask, can have been the factor which caused such an extraordinary
similarity in the duration of empires, under such diverse conditions, and such utterly
different technological achievements?

Monterrey · #4 06-26-2021, 06:14 PM

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One of the very few units of measurement which have not seriously changed since the
Assyrians is the human ‘generation’, a period of about twenty-five years. Thus a period of 250 years would represent about ten generations of people. A closer examination of the characteristics of the rise and fall of great nations may emphasize the possible significance of the sequence of generations. Let us then attempt to examine the stages in the lives of such powerful nations.

IV Stage one. The outburst

Again and again in history we find a small nation, treated as insignificant by its
contemporaries, suddenly emerging from its homeland and overrunning large areas of the world. Prior to Philip (359-336 B.C.), Macedon had been an insignificant state to the
north of Greece. Persia was the great power of the time, completely dominating the area from Eastern Europe to India. Yet by 323 B.C., thirty-six years after the accession of Philip, the Persian Empire had ceased to exist, and the Macedonian Empire extended
from the Danube to India, including Egypt.

This amazing expansion may perhaps he attributed to the genius of Alexander the Great, but this cannot have been the sole reason; for although after his death everything went wrong—the Macedonian generals fought one another and established rival empires—Macedonian pre-eminence survived for 231 years.

In the year A.D. 600, the world was divided between two superpower groups as it has
been for the past fifty years between Soviet Russia and the West. The two powers were the eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. The Arabs were then the despised
and backward inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula. They consisted chiefly of wandering
tribes, and had no government, no constitution and no army. Syria, Palestine,
Egypt and North Africa were Roman provinces, Iraq was part of Persia.

The Prophet Mohammed preached in Arabia from A.D. 613 to 632, when he died. In 633, the Arabs burst out of their desert peninsula, and simultaneously attacked the
two super-powers. Within twenty years, the Persian Empire had ceased to exist. Seventy years after the death of the Prophet, the Arabs had established an empire extending from the Atlantic to the plains of Northern India and the frontiers of China.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mongols were a group of savage tribes in
the steppes of Mongolia. In 1211, Genghis Khan invaded China. By 1253, the Mongols
had established an empire extending from Asia Minor to the China Sea, one of the
largest empires the world has ever known.

The Arabs ruled the greater part of Spain for 780 years, from 712 A.D. to 1492. (780
years back in British history would take us to 1196 and King Richard Coeur de Lion.)
During these eight centuries, there had been no Spanish nation, the petty kings of Aragon and Castile alone holding on in the mountains. The agreement between Ferdinand and Isabella and Christopher Columbus was signed immediately after the fall of Granada, the last Arab kingdom in Spain, in 1492. Within fifty years, Cortez had conquered Mexico, and Spain was the world’s greatest empire.

Examples of the sudden outbursts by which empires are born could be multiplied
indefinitely. These random illustrations must suffice.

Esaias · #5 06-26-2021, 06:21 PM

I've heard it said (not sure by whom) "Hard times produce great men, great men produce good times, good times produce weak men, weak men produce hard times...."

Evang.Benincasa · #6 07-27-2021, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esaias

I've heard it said (not sure by whom) "Hard times produce great men, great men produce good times, good times produce weak men, weak men produce hard times...."

Didn't the fiction writer Michael Hopf pen those words? He wrote Western Fiction "Old Cowboys never die, the just smell that way?" I do believe he wrote those words in one of his novels.

Monterrey · #7 06-26-2021, 06:22 PM

The Fate of Empires

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V Characteristics of the outburst

These sudden outbursts are usually characterised by an extraordinary display of energy and courage. The new conquerors are normally poor, hardy and enterprising and above all aggressive. The decaying empires which they overthrow are wealthy but defensive-minded. In the time of Roman greatness, the legions used to dig a ditch round their camps at night to avoid surprise. But the ditches were mere earthworks, and between them wide spaces were left through which the Romans could counter-attack. But as Rome grew older, the earthworks became high walls, through which access was given
only by narrow gates. Counterattacks were no longer possible. The legions were now
passive defenders.

But the new nation is not only distinguished by victory in battle, but by unresting enterprise in every field. Men hack their way through jungles, climb mountains, or brave the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans in tiny cockle-shells. The Arabs crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in A.D. 711 with 12,000 men, defeated a Gothic army of more than twice their strength, marched straight over 250 miles of unknown enemy territory and seized the Gothic capital of Toledo. At the same stage in British history, Captain Cook discovered Australia. Fearless initiative characterizes such periods.

Other peculiarities of the period of the conquering pioneers are their readiness to improvise and experiment. Untrammelled by traditions, they will turn anything available to their purpose. If one method fails, they try something else. Uninhibited by textbooks or book learning, action is their solution to every problem. Poor, hardy, often half-starved and ill-clad, they abound in courage, energy and initiative, overcome every obstacle and always seem to be in control of the situation.

VI The causes of race outbursts

The modern instinct is to seek a reason for everything, and to doubt the veracity of a statement for which a reason cannot be found. So many examples can be given of the sudden eruption of an obscure race into a nation of conquerors that the truth of the phenomenon cannot be held to be doubtful. To assign a cause is more difficult. Perhaps the easiest explanation is to assume that the poor and obscure race is tempted by the wealth of the ancient civilisation, and there would undoubtedly appear to be an element of greed for loot in barbarian invasions.

Such a motivation may be divided into two classes. The first is mere loot, plunder and rape, as, for example, in the case of Attila and the Huns, who ravaged a great part of Europe from A.D. 450 to 453. However, when Attila died in the latter year, his empire fell apart and his tribes returned to Eastern Europe.

Many of the barbarians who founded dynasties in Western Europe on the ruins of the Roman Empire, however, did so out of admiration for Roman civilisation, and themselves aspired to become Romans.

VII A providential turnover?

Whatever causes may be given for the overthrow of great civilisations by barbarians, we can sense certain resulting benefits. Every race on earth has distinctive characteristics. Some have been distinguished in philosophy, some in administration, some in romance, poetry or religion, some in