A Short History of the World

by Christopher Lascelles

  By 1480 the grand princes of Muscovy had accumulated so much wealth that nobody was left to challenge them. Grand Duke Ivan III of Muscovy – not to be confused with his son, Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ – began subjugating most of Moscow’s rival cities and was the first Muscovite ruler to adopt the title of tsar and ‘Ruler of all Rus’. It was during his reign that northern Russia was united under one ruler and that Mongol rule was shaken off.

  While the Mongols may have allowed Muscovy to grow and develop at the expense of the surrounding city states, effectively fuelling the expansion of the nascent Russian Empire, Mongol rule also isolated Russia from Europe. This partially explains why Russia fell behind in introducing the kinds of major social and political reforms that were being introduced in Europe at the time thanks to the Renaissance and the Reformation. Europe developed a middle class; Russia did not. This was to have far-reaching consequences for the country’s subsequent development.

  The Legacy of the Mongols

  In terms of territory, the Mongols were the greatest conquerors of all time, bringing almost the entire continent of Asia under the control of one Great Khan; only the British Empire in the 19th century had more land to its name, but it was more disparate, spanning the world. Unlike the Confucian Chinese, who considered traders parasites, the Mongols fortunately recognised the importance of trade and commerce. By improving communications within their empire and by permitting European merchants to journey overland as far as China for the first time, the Mongols effectively put the East in touch with the West, re-opening trade routes that had lain dormant since the time of Muhammad.

  It was during this period that Kublai Khan welcomed the Italian explorer Marco Polo to his court. Marco Polo was a 13th century explorer from Venice who spent many years at the court of Kublai Khan and travelled throughout his Empire. His book about the time he spent there, which he dictated while in prison after being captured during a war between Venice and Genoa, became famous in Europe.

  As we will see, it was contact with the East – and the ensuing insatiable European demand for its silk and spices – that encouraged Europeans to seek a Western sea route to Asia, thereby ‘discovering’ America in the process.

  The Hundred Years War in Europe (AD 1337–1453)

  Over in Europe, in 1337 England had gone to war with France over the inheritance of the French crown, initiating a conflict that would rage on and off for a century, the longest single conflict in English history. French support for the Scots in the face of English intervention there only strengthened the resolve of the English to teach the French a lesson. With the help of their archers, the English won a series of major battles over the coming century; the battles of Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415 are just two of the better-known battles in which the flower of French aristocracy was destroyed.

  By the 1420s England possessed most of present-day France north of the Loire River and it looked like France had been decisively beaten. However, wearied by such a long war and worn down by taxes implemented to finance the military campaigns,45 the English found themselves unable to withstand the force of a united France under Joan of Arc and they were driven from French soil. The capture of Bordeaux by the French in 1453, just as Constantinople was falling to the Ottomans, marked the end of the war. Before they fled, however, they managed to seize Joan of Arc, try her for heresy, and burn her at the stake.

  Ten years into the Hundred Years War, Europe was hit by a devastating plague brought in on ships from Asia, where it had originated in the 1330s. Called the ‘Black Death’ because it caused the blackening of skin around the swellings it induced, the plague wiped out some 20 million people, or between one-quarter and one-third of Europe’s population between 1347 and 1351.

  The largely uneducated non-Jewish European populations did not understand why religious groups that prescribed washing, such as Jews and Muslims, had lower levels of the disease. As a result, many Jews were blamed for the plague, or for sorcery, and were in many instances either murdered or driven from towns. In a frenzy of religious hatred, Jews would eventually be expelled from France in 1394 and Spain in 1492, having already been expelled from England in 1290.

  The plague and continuous wars of the 14th century led people to question authority, including even that of the Church, which was about to go through its own struggle, causing a further decline in its authority. In a dispute over the validity of an election for Pope in 1378, Europe was split between the support for an Italian Pope in Rome and a French Pope in Avignon in France, who had both ex-communicated each other. This impasse lasted for a period of 40 years, with each Pope naming his own successor, and became known as the Great Western Schism. When an attempt was finally made to resolve the split, a third rival Pope was produced. Finally, all three Popes were deposed in favour of a new pontiff, Martin V, the election of whom, in 1417, gave the Catholic world a new single Pope based in Rome. However, the schism had weakened the Papacy and further decreased loyalty to the Church.46

  The Rise of the Ottomans (AD 1301)

  Weakened by civil war and under constant pressure from the crusaders from the west, the Arabs from the south, and the Mongols from the east, it was amazing that the Seljuk Sultanate lasted as long as it did. When it eventually weakened, the small remaining principalities all vied for supremacy. When peace eventually came through the retreat of both the Mongols and the crusaders, one of these principalities rose to dominance and succeeded in building a powerful and extensive empire for the next several hundred years: that of the Ottomans.

  In 1301 the leader of one of these principalities and the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman, defeated a Byzantine army a few miles from Constantinople. This gave him great prestige and led to the consolidation of Ottoman authority over a substantial area in north-west Anatolia (Turkey). The Ottomans expanded rapidly, absorbing weaker tribes to the east and reducing the weakened Byzantine Empire to just the city of Constantinople by 1351. The Byzantine Emperor attempted to persuade the Pope in Rome that, despite their differences, they had a common enemy, even travelling to Rome in person in 1369 to submit publicly to the Pope in the hope of receiving aid, but with no success.

  In 1389 the Ottomans, under Murad I, wiped out a huge combined army of Serbs, Albanians and Poles at the Battle of Kosovo Polje, in present-day Serbia, in yet another defining moment for the West. Shortly after the battle, the whole of Macedonia was incorporated into the Ottoman state. Murad himself was killed in the battle but his son, Bayezid, who succeeded him, ended up laying siege to Constantinople in 1394. It seemed that nothing could stop the Ottoman advance and that the long-awaited collapse of the Byzantine Empire was finally at hand. However, at the last hour it was the Ottoman Turks themselves who were attacked from the east. The capture of Constantinople would have to wait.

  Tamerlane (AD 1336–1405)

  The Mongol leader, Timur – or Tamerlane as he is referred to in the West – unwittingly came to the defence of Europe at the turn of the 15th century. Tamerlane had grown in power in the mid-14th century by taking advantage of the slow disintegration of the Chagatai Khanate, which had been ruled by a series of weak leaders. He was determined to make himself master of Central Asia. ‘As there is but one God in heaven,’ he said, ‘there ought to be but one ruler on earth.’ In an eight year rampage of destruction between 1396 and 1404 he conquered most of Central Asia, invaded northern India, executing up to 100,000 Indian prisoners in cold blood before the gates of Delhi, and destroyed Baghdad, slaughtering up to 20,000 of its inhabitants and making towers of their skulls. He also captured Syria, conquered Persia, and received submission from Egypt.

  Tamerlane's campaign in the west was directed against two enemies: the Ottomans and the Mamluks. After defeating the Mamluks, he successfully defeated an Ottoman army at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, capturing Sultan Bayezid in the process. The Sultan died in captivity, after having been paraded around in a cage, an ignominious end for an Ottoman Sultan. The capture of the Sultan was greeted with r
ejoicing by the kings in the West, who even sent sycophantic messages to Tamerlane in the hope that he would ally with them against the Turks. Mercifully for everyone, he died in 1405, at the age of 69, before any of his plans could be realised, and his Timurid Empire lasted only a short period after his death. His legacy did continue, however, in India, where his great-great-grandson Babur founded the Mughal Empire.

  The Fall of Constantinople (AD 1453)

  Bayezid’s sons fought over the inheritance of their father for the following ten years until Mehmed I emerged as the new leader. He almost immediately went on the warpath, retaking most of the lands that Tamerlane had won from his father while his son, Murad II, successfully defeated an alliance of Europeans sent to meet him after he invaded Serbia in 1439.

  It was Murad’s son, Mehmed II, who finally brought an end to what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire47 with a 54 day siege of Constantinople. The relatively new weapon, the canon, finally helped break the walls that had defended Constantinople for centuries. One of Mehmed’s first actions was to go to the Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral of Orthodox Christianity built under Justinian and, after a quick prayer of thanks, order it to be turned into a mosque.

  By the end of the 14th century the Byzantine Empire had long lost its influence and no longer posed a military threat, consisting as it did of only the city of Constantinople and some surrounding land. The city itself had never really regained its grandeur following the crusader occupation of 1204-1261. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to imagine the sensation that the fall of Constantinople – one of the greatest cities in the world for over 800 years – would have caused in the West. It was, after all, still the capital of the Roman Empire, no matter how run down, and its fall only increased fears that the Turks were about to overrun the entire continent, a fear that even led to Pope Pius II offering to make Mehmed Emperor if he converted to Christianity.

  At this point in time the Ottoman Sultan ruled over all of Muslim Asia, claiming all lands to the Euphrates River in the east and superiority over all other Islamic rulers.48 Constantinople became the new imperial capital and gradually acquired the name of Istanbul.

  In the west, the war continued on both land and sea. Serbia capitulated shortly after the fall of Constantinople and most of the Balkans followed thereafter. The Ottomans then took over the southernmost part of Greece, defeated Venice, and landed on the heel of Italy. It was only the death of Mehmed II in 1481 that stopped the Ottoman troops from invading Europe any further, the troops having been ordered home to help the new Sultan defeat his brother in a leadership battle. Yet again, Europe was saved at the last minute.

  Ming China (AD 1368–1644)

  As the Ottomans grew in power in the Middle East, China missed its opportunity to become the major global power. The Chinese had never accepted their Mongolian Yuan overlords and their treatment under them had led to growing discontent; the people had been taxed heavily to pay for expensive projects, including the building of roads, and many military campaigns undertaken by the Yuan, which ultimately failed. Widespread crop failure in the north and the resulting famine in the 1340s only served to break the back of an already fragile system.

  Hungry and homeless, the peasants united and rebelled. In the 1360s, one such peasant, a former Buddhist monk called Zhu Yuanzhang, was successful in extending his power throughout the Yangtze Valley. He seized Beijing in 1368, forced the Mongols to withdraw to Mongolia, took the title Hongwu, and declared himself the founder of a new Chinese dynasty: the Ming Dynasty.49

  The new dynasty was initially open to the world and encouraged trade. Under the reign of the second Ming emperor, the Chinese even embarked on a series of major naval expeditions. Between 1405 and 1433, many decades before Columbus or Magellan, several expeditions under the leadership of Admiral ZhengHe set sail on journeys of geographical exploration and diplomacy around the Indian Ocean, going as far as Africa.50 These expeditions are said to have included up to 28,000 men on ships up to 300 feet long.

  The potential of China at this time seemed almost limitless; had it continued to look outwards, it may well have been the Chinese who discovered America, not the Europeans.51 Unfortunately for China, however, this was not to be. With the Mongols expelled, Confucian ministers gained power at the court of the Emperor. Confucians were hostile to commerce and – understandably, following the recent Mongol occupation – to all things foreign. They also had an unhealthy veneration for the past. ‘Preserving the glories of the past seemed more important in China than addressing the kind of questions that global expansion was forcing onto Westerners’ attention.’52 There was plenty to keep the Chinese occupied at home, particularly finding the resources to repel continuous and aggressive raids on their borders by the Mongols. Developing into a great maritime trading power was simply not one of their objectives.

  Under the influence of Confucian ministers, the government ended its sponsorship of naval expeditions, dismantled shipyards, and forbade the construction of multi-masted ships. In the 1470s ZhengHe’s records were destroyed and by 1525 it was an offence to build any ocean-going vessel.53 So ended the great age of Chinese exploration and the development of world maritime trade was left to the Europeans, who were just beginning to embark on their voyages of discovery.

  Without doubt this had significant detrimental impact on the subsequent development of the country. Up until this time, China had been one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, inventing paper, gunpowder, porcelain and the magnetic compass amongst other things. However, the strength of its emperors meant that a decision by one person could – and did – halt innovation, and the country’s strong veneration for the past eventually began to act as a disadvantage in a world where innovation and invention gave countries a competitive edge. Families tended ‘to preserve what was ancient and hallowed at the expense of what was new but potentially disruptive’.54

  Nor did China’s relative isolation from other countries encourage it to look outwards. Perhaps no greater example of this exists than the construction of the Great Wall of China, which was built to keep foreigners out.

  Europe, on the other hand, was a collection of small and competing states with multiple cultures and languages and this unsuspectingly served as an advantage to its inventors and explorers; if one party failed to sponsor them, they could always turn to another. Either way, it was in a country’s best interests to keep up with the latest technologies in order to keep the balance of power. As a result, European inventors were encouraged rather than discouraged.

  ‘In the end it was precisely the instability which Europeans had been trying unsuccessfully to evade for so long which had turned out to be their greatest strength. Their wars, their incessant internal struggles, their religious quarrels, all these had been the unfortunate, but necessary condition, of the intellectual growth which had led them, unlike their Asiatic neighbours, to develop the metaphysical and inquiring attitudes towards nature which, in turn, had given them the power to transform and control the worlds in which they lived.’55

  The Retreat of Islam

  China was not the only civilisation that retreated into itself. Much of the Islamic world, formerly a beacon of progress in a backward world, became seemingly trapped by the limits of scripture, unprepared to accept the value of any teaching or development not expressly mentioned in the Qur’an. Why innovate when everything anybody needed to know was written in the Qur’an? As David Landes states, ‘Islamic science, denounced as heresy by religious zealots, bent under theological pressure for spiritual conformity.’56

  Islamic refusal to accept the idea of a printed Qur’an meant that such countries generally remained opposed to the printing press, a key channel for spreading the ideas of the Renaissance, which led to the intellectual development of Western Europe. What nobody predicted was quite the extent and speed at which Europe would ultimately grow.

  V

  The Ascent of the West

  AD 1450 - 1780


  Fortuitously for Europe, Islamic scholars were beginning to reject development not expressly mentioned in the Qur’an and the Hadith57 just as the Chinese were limiting their relations with the outside world and looking backwards to Confucian writings from the 6th century BC. Europe on the other hand, until that point behind both the Chinese and the Islamic world in its general development, was about to witness a shift that would drag it out of the Middle Ages, change the course of history, and lead to European domination of the world.

  The Renaissance (early 15th – late 16th Centuries)

  The causes of this shift were many. They revolved around the exchange of ideas and goods that increased in volume after the end of the Crusades, the discovery of new worlds which led people to question what they believed, the challenge to the teachings of the Church and its authority after repeated schisms, and the sudden influx of knowledge brought to Europe by scholars fleeing the Ottoman advance.

  Often referred to as the Renaissance, from the French word for ‘rebirth’, and generally understood to have taken place from the early 15th to the late 16th centuries, the period saw a deep transformation of the way in which Europeans thought, ruled, and lived.

  The most important technical and cultural innovation of the Renaissance was the introduction of Guttenberg’s printing press around 1450. Without the ability to spread new ideas rapidly and cheaply, it is unlikely that Europe would have developed at the speed at which it did. The printing press saw the start of a communications revolution in which by 1480 books were being printed in the major cities of Germany, France, the Netherlands, England and Poland. To put it into perspective, ‘in the 50 years following the invention more books were produced than in the preceding thousand years.58 With larger print runs came lower unit costs, thus making books both more available and cheaper to the wider public. What’s more, books were also increasingly published in the local language of the region as opposed to Latin, which contributed to building a sense of nation-hood.