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Authors: John Higgs
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imperialistic.
This was how the world had organised itself throughout history. There was scant evidence that other systems were available. As Philip II of Macedon was reputed to have said to his son Alexander the Great in 336 BC , ‘My son, ask for thyself another kingdom, for the one which I leave is too small for thee.’ Alexander may not have conquered all the known world, but he certainly gave it a good shot. He claimed territory that didn’t belong to him through strategy, determination and the possession of a superior army. This was considered admirable and impressive, both in his time and afterwards. He was not viewed, over those long millennia, as a thief, murderer or psychopath, and neither were the emperors who built the Roman, Persian or Egyptian empires. From long before Alexander, emperors were a logical part of human society. It is maybe not surprising that, in an age of unprecedented global migration, Norton’s use of the title would have some residual symbolic power in the nineteenth century.
And then, that system ended.
The concept of emperors, so firmly carved into the entirety of world history, collapsed over a few short years. The First World Warbegan on 28 July 1914. By the time the war ended, on 11 November 1918, emperors were discredited beyond redemption. They were the way things always had been, but in a blink they were gone.
Nicholas II of Russia and all of his family were shot dead in a cellar in Yekaterinburg in 1918, after the Bolsheviks seized power. Imperial dynastic China ended with the fall of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese republic in 1912, following years of internal strife. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed at the end of the war in 1918 and the Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1922. Wilhelm II of Germany avoided being extradited by the Allies for a probable hanging, but he was forced to abdicate and lived the rest of his life in exile. Of all the dynastic Western emperors and empresses who ruled the major world empires at the start of the twentieth century, only the British king remained on his throne when the shooting stopped, and even then the British Empire was wound down and dismantled over the following decades. A similar fate befell the Empire of Japan, which emerged from the First World War intact, but only lasted until the end of the Second.
What caused this sudden change? Before we can begin to disentangle the messy aftermath of the war to end all wars, we’re going to take a step back and consider why emperors were so universal, and what changes brought about their downfall. To do this we’ll need to go a little further back than you might expect from a book about the twentieth century. But bear with me, for the question of why such a long-lasting system of human organisation should end so abruptly has surprising parallels to the work of the scientists and artists we have already discussed.
Imagine that human societies can be represented by a linear, progressive scale, with those societies increasing in complexity as population grows.
At one end of the scale are small roving bands of hunter-gatherers, which may only number a few dozen. These groupings have no hierarchies or leadership structures other than those thatemerge from the normal politics of family life. Property and decision-making are shared, and formal structures are unnecessary.
When the size of the group swells from dozens to hundreds, these bands become tribes. But although decision-making remains egalitarian, there starts to emerge a ‘big man’ in the tribe who, although not possessing any formal status, tends to be actively involved in conflict resolution and planning. His (or on occasions, her) role is the result of personal aptitude and character. It is a case of the best person for the task stepping up when needed. That person would not receive any special rewards for their actions. They would dress the same as everybody else, perform the same amount of work and live
This was how the world had organised itself throughout history. There was scant evidence that other systems were available. As Philip II of Macedon was reputed to have said to his son Alexander the Great in 336 BC , ‘My son, ask for thyself another kingdom, for the one which I leave is too small for thee.’ Alexander may not have conquered all the known world, but he certainly gave it a good shot. He claimed territory that didn’t belong to him through strategy, determination and the possession of a superior army. This was considered admirable and impressive, both in his time and afterwards. He was not viewed, over those long millennia, as a thief, murderer or psychopath, and neither were the emperors who built the Roman, Persian or Egyptian empires. From long before Alexander, emperors were a logical part of human society. It is maybe not surprising that, in an age of unprecedented global migration, Norton’s use of the title would have some residual symbolic power in the nineteenth century.
And then, that system ended.
The concept of emperors, so firmly carved into the entirety of world history, collapsed over a few short years. The First World Warbegan on 28 July 1914. By the time the war ended, on 11 November 1918, emperors were discredited beyond redemption. They were the way things always had been, but in a blink they were gone.
Nicholas II of Russia and all of his family were shot dead in a cellar in Yekaterinburg in 1918, after the Bolsheviks seized power. Imperial dynastic China ended with the fall of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese republic in 1912, following years of internal strife. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed at the end of the war in 1918 and the Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1922. Wilhelm II of Germany avoided being extradited by the Allies for a probable hanging, but he was forced to abdicate and lived the rest of his life in exile. Of all the dynastic Western emperors and empresses who ruled the major world empires at the start of the twentieth century, only the British king remained on his throne when the shooting stopped, and even then the British Empire was wound down and dismantled over the following decades. A similar fate befell the Empire of Japan, which emerged from the First World War intact, but only lasted until the end of the Second.
What caused this sudden change? Before we can begin to disentangle the messy aftermath of the war to end all wars, we’re going to take a step back and consider why emperors were so universal, and what changes brought about their downfall. To do this we’ll need to go a little further back than you might expect from a book about the twentieth century. But bear with me, for the question of why such a long-lasting system of human organisation should end so abruptly has surprising parallels to the work of the scientists and artists we have already discussed.
Imagine that human societies can be represented by a linear, progressive scale, with those societies increasing in complexity as population grows.
At one end of the scale are small roving bands of hunter-gatherers, which may only number a few dozen. These groupings have no hierarchies or leadership structures other than those thatemerge from the normal politics of family life. Property and decision-making are shared, and formal structures are unnecessary.
When the size of the group swells from dozens to hundreds, these bands become tribes. But although decision-making remains egalitarian, there starts to emerge a ‘big man’ in the tribe who, although not possessing any formal status, tends to be actively involved in conflict resolution and planning. His (or on occasions, her) role is the result of personal aptitude and character. It is a case of the best person for the task stepping up when needed. That person would not receive any special rewards for their actions. They would dress the same as everybody else, perform the same amount of work and live
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