A

Aaland (Åland) Islands Archipelago located in the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland. It comprises around 6,500 mainly uninhabited islands and skerries. These belonged to Sweden until 1809 when Aaland, like Finland, became incorporated into Russia. After the CRIMEAN WAR the islands' NEUTRALITY was conceded by Tsar ALEXANDER II. Following the collapse of Romanov rule in 1917 the Finns claimed the archipelago and, despite Swedish protest, the LEAGUE OF NATIONS endorsed their case in 1921. During the years 1941–4 the area was under German control. Today the islands have a population of around 27,000 and continue to form an autonomous and demilitarized province of Finland, albeit with Swedish as the official language.

Abdul Hamid II (1842–1918), Sultan of Turkey (1876–1909), also sometimes known as the “Great Assassin” and “Abdul Hamid the Damned,” and chiefly remembered for his brutal method of governing. It was anticipated that the reign of this highly cultured man might bring about progressive reform. On coming to the throne of Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE) in 1876 he oversaw the promulgation of the Ottoman empire's first constitution, though this was suspended two years later. Nationalist agitation in the BALKANS was brutally suppressed and led to the RUSSO-TURKISH WAR of 1877–8. The sultan looked increasingly to the GERMAN EMPIRE for international support and assistance with domestic reform, yet he was unprepared to meet the demands of his own subject nationalities, and his reign was peppered by revolts including those in Crete (1896–7). An Armenian reform movement was crushed with particular brutality, resulting in the killing of anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 of his Christian subjects (1894–6) – a forewarning of the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE of 1915. Ultimately Abdul Hamid was unable to hold the empire together. Egypt, CYPRUS, and Sudan all fell under British protection. In 1908 the YOUNG TURK reformers forced the sultan to reinstate the constitution and recall parliament, but it was too little too late. A year later, he attempted to recover his powers, but was deposed in a coup. After exile, he returned in 1912 to Istanbul where he spent his final years.

Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon, Earl of (1784–1860), British Prime Minister (1852–5) and Foreign Secretary (1828–30, 1841–6). He made his mark as an outstanding diplomat during the Napoleonic Wars. In his first period as foreign secretary he assisted the cause of independence for GREECE. During the second he achieved improved relations with France, and ended the conflict with China by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 which opened up that country to British trade and provided a lease on Hong Kong. Such successes augured well for his premiership which began in 1852. However, his administration, which comprised a number of talented if temperamental individuals, fell victim to the criticisms of the incompetence and corruption exposed during the CRIMEAN WAR, and he resigned in 1855.

Abgrenzung German term denoting both “boundary” and “differentiation.” Those combined meanings are encountered by historians principally in the context of the attempts made by the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, especially in the 1970s and 1980s under HONECKER, to develop a form of national identity separate from that represented by the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY. The eventual failure of a policy that originated from COLD WAR tensions was evident in the GERMAN REUNIFICATION of 1990.

absolutism Political system in which sovereignty is identified with the person of the monarch who is answerable for his stewardship of the realm solely to God (see also MONARCHISM). Though it was not until the early nineteenth century that historians used this specific term, discourse about “absolute” rule as a characteristic of a number of states in ANCIEN REGIME Europe had long been commonplace. Its theoretical justification had been articulated with particular clarity in the French context by Jean Bodin through his Six Books of a Commonweal (1576). He argued that absolute power consisted essentially in the king's ability to make laws for his subjects without their consent. In practice, the exercise of royal authority was often hampered, for example by inefficient administration, powerful nobles, and intermediate bodies such as courts and representative institutions. Bodin was also keen to draw a distinction between absolutist regimes in the West which acknowledged that subjects had rights as well as responsibilities, and autocratic regimes in the East which did not. By identifying the nation, rather than the monarchy, as the source of sovereignty, the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 raised the most profound challenge to absolute rule. During the nineteenth century Europe witnessed further decline in this mode of governance, as LIBERALISM and DEMOCRACY gained a generally firmer hold. There was, however, protracted resistance from certain regimes still possessed of autocratic pretensions, such as the tsarist one in RUSSIA and that of the sultanate in Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE).

Abwehr Term meaning “defense,” applied in Germany to the military intelligence and counter-espionage organization operative from 1920 until 1944. Originally performing domestic functions, this expanded under the Third Reich (see NAZISM) to include a spy network abroad. Led by Admiral Canaris from 1935, the Abwehr had become by 1939 a branch of the Armed Forces Supreme Command (OKW). Its espionage proved especially valuable in the BALKANS, and its greatest counter-intelligence success was registered against the Soviet resistance network labeled the “Rote Kapelle.” Within the Nazi system, the Abwehr suffered from its rivalry with the SD (see SICHERHEITSDIENST). Eventually Canaris and other senior colleagues became embroiled in some of the German RESISTANCE to HITLER. Early in 1944 HIMMLER as leader of the SCHUTZSTAFFEL (SS) took over most of the responsibilities previously assigned to the Abwehr.

Abyssinian War (see ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR)

acquis communautaire French term often translated as the “patrimony” gradually accumulated since the 1950s by the European Community (EC), and latterly the European Union (EU). It embraces the various international compacts, legal rulings, and other agreements about principles and policies that are deemed fundamentally binding on states participating in EUROPEAN INTEGRATION. Because such matters have become increasingly complex and interconnected since the ROME TREATIES of 1957, the constantly developing acquis reflects the qualitative “deepening” of EC/EU structures. Insofar as it has also expressed at any given time the unnegotiable core of established obligations that new applicants must accept, the concept is equally central to the “widening” that began in 1973 when the founding states of the so-called SIX admitted the first additional members.

Action Française Militant French right-wing movement, often identified as a precursor to FASCISM. Founded in 1898 by the neo-royalist ideologue MAURRAS amid the DREYFUS AFFAIR, the organization was first called the Ligue de la Patrie Française, before becoming Action Française a year later. A newspaper bearing this name appeared from 1908 onwards, edited by the prolific author Léon Daudet. Promoting ANTISEMITISM and fierce NATIONALISM, Action Française enjoyed considerable support among the bourgeoisie, though it also sought to attract the urban working classes, and had a youth section, the Camelots du Roi, which broke up left-wing meetings. Having fervently supported the war effort from 1914 to 1918, Action Française lost ground during the 1920s to new right-wing organizations, such as the CROIX DE FEU. In 1926 the movement was condemned by PIUS XI, not for its RACISM and propensity towards violence, but because of its increasingly agnostic message. Several priests, however, continued to subscribe, and Maurras' men were prominent in the STAVISKY AFFAIR of 1934. During World War II several supporters served in the early cabinets of the VICHY REGIME, before the movement was banned at the Liberation.

Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967), Chancellor of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (FRG) (1949–63). He was a Catholic Rhinelander who became mayor of Cologne in 1917 and president of the Prussian State Council in 1920, and who retained both these positions until dismissed in 1933 by the Nazis (see NAZISM). Though twice imprisoned under HITLER, Adenauer survived the Third Reich to assume in 1946 the leadership of the recently established Christian Democratic Party (see CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY), initially within the British occupation zone. He then played a central role in formulating an effective democratic constitution for the new FRG at large. Having become its founding Chancellor in the aftermath of the BERLIN BLOCKADE of 1948–9, he achieved re-election at the head of the Christian Democrats in 1953, 1957, and 1961. From 1951 to 1955 he also acted as foreign minister. During his long chancellorship Adenauer undertook the international rehabilitation of so-called West Germany by forging a closer relationship with France and other neighbors, for example via the Schuman Plan of 1950 (see SCHUMAN) and the ROME TREATIES of 1957. Such promotion of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION to the west of the “iron curtain” developed alongside the strengthening of a domestic ‘social market economy,” in both of which policies he enjoyed skilful assistance from his eventual successor ERHARD. The FRG's accession to NATO in 1955 similarly reinforced its military security as part of the Western alliance's response to conditions of COLD WAR. These persisted throughout Adenauer's tenure as head of government, and indeed worsened with the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC'S erection of the BERLIN WALL in 1961. More positively, the good relations that he had latterly cultivated with DE GAULLE culminated in the Franco-German friendship treaty of 1963. By then, however, Adenauer's party was chafing with discontent about its leader's advanced age and increasingly autocratic demeanor. He was finally persuaded to resign in October of that year. His principal legacy was having guided the western half of divided Germany towards the entrenchment of parliamentary democracy, economic stability, and international cooperation.

Adrianople, Treaty of Agreement made in September 1829 by Russia and Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE), ending the hostilities between them that had begun the previous year within the context of the GREEK WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. The settlement significantly extended the range of Russia's influence and “protection” over the BALKANS. Ottoman Turkey promised autonomy to Greece, SERBIA, and the DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES. It also accepted direct Russian annexation of some territory at the mouth of the Danube, as well as the loss of Georgia and eastern Armenia. In addition, Russia gained navigation rights for its merchant shipping through the DARDANELLES.

Aehrenthal, Alois Baron Lexa von (1854–1912), Foreign Minister of the HABSBURG EMPIRE from 1906 to 1912. Aehrenthal came to this position hoping to maintain good relations with Russia, where he had been ambassador since 1899. This approach was sacrificed, however, due to his determination to pursue a more dynamic policy than his predecessor, Count Gołuchowksi. Thus Aehrenthal tried to consolidate Austria's position in the BALKANS. Initially, he hoped that approval of Russia's patronage of BULGARIA might allow him a free hand in BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. However, when the latter was formally annexed by the Austrians in 1908, Russia viewed this as a direct threat to SERBIA and thus to its own interests (see also IZVOLSKY). Aehrenthal's increasingly aggressive stance on Balkan policy played a key role in the deterioration of Austro-Russian relations that eventually led on to the JULY CRISIS of 1914 and the outbreak of WORLD WAR I.

Africa, Scramble for (see under IMPERIALISM)

Agadir crisis (see under MOROCCAN CRISES)

agitprop Abbreviation for the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, established by the Soviet regime in August 1920 under the Central Committee of the Communist party. The most important parts of the department dealt with propaganda, where it pioneered several new techniques, and the political education of party members. Its powers grew after STALIN took control of the new SOVIET UNION, and it became an important tool in rallying the home front during World War II. By the BREZHNEV era, it was overseeing the full range of Russian cultural life, still crushing any hint of dissent. It was dissolved following the Soviet Union's collapse. Elsewhere in Europe the term agitprop had often become associated with mere political indoctrination, though some left-wing intellectuals (e.g. Bertolt Brecht) had followed the Soviet habit of endowing the concept with a more positive meaning linked to the promotion of supposedly inspirational forms of literary and artistic didacticism.

agriculture (see under RURAL SOCIETY)

Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress of (see under CONGRESS SYSTEM)

Albania A country in the western BALKANS whose largely mountainous territory lies on the Adriatic coast between MONTENEGRO and GREECE and runs inland towards KOSOVO and MACEDONIA. In the fifteenth century the Albanians, like the other peoples of this region, had fallen under the rule of an expansionist Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE). However, as Ottoman power in the Balkans waned during the nineteenth century, there was growing Albanian NATIONALISM. This benefited, at least indirectly, from the almost autonomous personal rule secured from 1798 to 1820 by the locally-born chieftain, Ali Pasha of Janina. There was an unsuccessful rising in favor of greater self-governance in 1831, and during the RUSSO-TURKISH WAR of 1877–8 the League of Prizren (largely comprising conservative landowners) emerged with further pleas for improved autonomy. By the early twentieth century Albanian patriots were shifting their focus towards complete self-rule. In November 1912, following Turkey's decisive defeat in the BALKAN WAR of that year, a national assembly proclaimed full independence. Despite objections from a SERBIA keen to acquire territory on the Adriatic, Albanian sovereignty was confirmed by the powers gathered at the London Conference of May 1913. Even so, no clear governmental structure had been developed for Albania by the time that WORLD WAR I began. At that point Italy, fearful lest Greece should take advantage of its neighbor's instability, imposed a protectorate. Once the war was over, Albania faced the danger of being apportioned between those two states and the newly-created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (soon known as YUGOSLAVIA). This scheme was frustrated through the diplomacy of US President Wilson and, more directly still, through a national resistance movement led by Ahmet Bey Zogu, who by 1921 had reasserted Albanian independence. Internal strife dominated the political scene until the adoption in 1925 of a republican constitution, which operated under Zogu's presidency for three years. He then abandoned it and proclaimed himself King ZOG. Even during his authoritarian monarchy Albania's independence remained significantly restricted by an increasing economic and military reliance on Italy. That situation was highlighted in April 1939, when MUSSOLINI'S forces invaded against minimal armed opposition. After Zog's flight into exile, the Duce extended VICTOR EMMANUEL III'S own royal authority to Albania and established at Tirana a fascist-style regime (see FASCISM).

As AXIS fortunes worsened in the course of WORLD WAR II, an Albanian RESISTANCE movement largely controlled by the communist supporters of HOXHA grew in strength. However, after Mussolini's fall in mid-1943, prospects of early liberation were quickly frustrated by German intervention. Here, as in Greece and Yugoslavia, HITLER'S forces temporarily benefited from growing hostility between the Albanian communist and anti-communist factions. When the Nazis at last retreated, it was Hoxha who, without direct Soviet assistance, imposed another form of severely repressive dictatorship. For forty years after 1945 the history of Albania was inseparable from that of his own career. While the country's isolated geographical position spared it any immediate danger of having Soviet forces stationed there, Hoxha was also skilful in limiting its vulnerability to COLD WAR tensions by exploiting the ongoing rivalries between Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece. In the context of international communist loyalties, this faithful follower of STALIN soon fell out with TITO'S regime and, eventually, with every other state proclaiming Marxist ideology. The processes of de-Stalinization increasingly favored by Moscow led him to break with the Soviet Union in 1961, and by the end of that decade Albania had been expelled from the WARSAW PACT. During the later 1970s Hoxha even abandoned his eccentric attachment to the Maoist version of communism. Until his death in 1985, he continued to persecute all expression of religious belief, whether by MUSLIMS or Christians. His legacy was a society deeply isolated from the rest of Europe, and one marked by a degree of economic backwardness unparalleled elsewhere within the continent. Influenced by the REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91 sweeping across the former Soviet bloc, Albania too began to move away from single-party politics in the early 1990s. It also abandoned much of its previous isolation: for example, by eventually joining NATO in 2009. The country dismantled its centralized command economy, and undertook extensive schemes of privatization whose operation suffered from growth in mafia-style corruption. Meanwhile, the country's small industrial sector remained in urgent need of modernization and outside investment. Estimates at the start of the twenty-first century indicated that this mainly agrarian society contained a population of some 3.5 millions (a figure that excluded the diaspora of ethnic Albanians located in Kosovo and other neighboring lands). Even though the state has now abandoned the official “atheistic” label that Hoxha imposed, the details affecting the vital issue of Albania's religious demography (which during the earlier twentieth century suggested a division between 70 percent Muslim and 30 percent Christian allegiance) remain altogether more speculative for the post-communist epoch.

Albert Name by which the French working-class politician Alexandre Martin (1815–95) was generally known. Early in the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9, he was brought into the provisional government of the SECOND REPUBLIC by Louis BLANC. As a champion of wide-ranging social reform, Albert was soon at loggerheads with more moderate colleagues. His involvement in an attempt to overthrow the National Assembly in May 1848 led to his arrest along with other radicals such as BLANQUI and Barbès. Albert remained in prison until released under amnesty in 1859.

Alexander I (1777–1825), Tsar of RUSSIA (1801–25). Educated in the liberal traditions of the ENLIGHTENMENT, the idealistic Alexander was widely expected to be a reformer when he succeeded his father PAUL I, in whose murder he had been implicated. However, he lacked both vision and resolution, and achieved little in this regard. Instead, he was caught up in the struggle against NAPOLEON I. Following the latter's retreat from MOSCOW and final defeat at WATERLOO, Alexander played a prominent role at the VIENNA CONGRESS. Increasingly drawn to a vague religious mysticism, he sought to create a HOLY ALLIANCE of Christian princes. His domestic policies became ever more autocratic, and he also wished to prevent popular insurrection abroad, offering to help suppress challenges to the established rulers in Spain and Italy, for example.

Alexander I (1888–1934), King of YUGOSLAVIA (1921–34). Son of Peter I of SERBIA, he was educated in Switzerland and imperial Russia, before serving in the BALKAN WARS and WORLD WAR I. He became regent of Serbia in 1914, and then of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918, where he succeeded to the kingship three years later. In foreign affairs he aimed to secure his country's future through the LITTLE ENTENTE, while at home he tried to ease ethnic rivalries. In 1929 his country was officially renamed Yugoslavia, in an attempt to promote a sense of national unity. However, Alexander's inclination was to indulge the Serbs, and in order to stifle Croatian separatism he found himself withdrawing several political liberties. On October 9, 1934, he was assassinated by a member of the Ustaše (see PAVELIĆ) while visiting France, in an attack that also killed the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou. Yugoslavia was subsequently governed by Alexander's cousin, Prince Paul, who acted as regent until its dismemberment by the Nazis in 1941.

Alexander II (1818–81), Tsar of RUSSIA (1855–81). He succeeded his father NICHOLAS I during the CRIMEAN WAR. Although initially optimistic about victory, he became persuaded (e.g. by the talented Dmitri Miliutin) that there was no possibility of defeating the allies, and Russia sued for peace in March 1856. The Crimean conflict not only turned the new tsar away from engagement with international affairs but also highlighted the weaknesses of the vast Romanov Empire. His reign witnessed many – often far from successful – attempts to address these problems through the modernization of Russia's political and social system.

The most important of these reforms was the 1861 Edict of Emancipation from SERFDOM. Although this earned Alexander the soubriquet of “tsar-liberator” and technically gave the serfs their freedom together with the right to own land, it was conceded partly because of a belief that it was better to grant such a measure from above rather than face mounting unrest from below. In reality the manner of emancipation was far from beneficial for many serfs, particularly as land was generally transferred to the village commune (see MIR) rather than to individual peasants. Alexander made numerous concessions to the gentry, which largely emasculated the measure. Although landlords lost their jurisdictional rights over peasants, the latter continued to pay feudal dues. A relatively small amount of land was transferred to ex-serfs. In the first instance this was paid for by the government, but the peasants were obliged to make “redemption payments,” which meant that many of them were significantly less well off than before. When peasants tried to acquire more property, they often fell into debt. Thus the changes were resented both by peasants and by nobles. The aristocracy of Russian POLAND was particularly fearful of the threat to its social position, and in 1863 this helped to stimulate a nationalist rebellion against tsarist authority. After defeating the rebels, Alexander granted favorable terms to the Polish peasantry, confiscating about a tenth of all noble land.

Alexander's other reforms included new arrangements for representative local government through the so-called ZEMSTVA (district and provincial councils elected on limited franchise). Experiments with judicial reform, notably trial by jury, were largely abandoned when the assassin who had killed St Petersburg's chief of police was acquitted despite ample evidence against her. Efforts to rationalize the chaotic fiscal system brought only limited benefits, although abolition of tax farming was effected. More successful were the military reforms undertaken by Miliutin. Despite – or perhaps because of – Alexander's reforms, his rule was often characterized by unrest. By the 1870s many well-educated young Russians were turning towards POPULISM, attempting unsuccessfully to mobilize the peasantry in support of radical social change. Faced by peasant indifference, some populists took to TERRORISM. These activities included a number of attempts on the tsar's life, one of which finally succeeded in 1881.

During the 1870s Alexander had increasingly favored a more assertive foreign policy. Thus in 1870, while France was fighting Prussia (see FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR), the tsar unilaterally revoked many of the clauses of the 1856 Paris Treaty. In 1877, following unrest in the BALKANS and Ottoman atrocities in BULGARIA, he declared war on TURKEY. Successes in this RUSSO-TURKISH WAR allowed Alexander's forces to threaten Constantinople early in 1878. The Turks responded by suing for peace. At the BERLIN CONGRESS of June 1878 the other great powers, frightened of a resurgent Russia, agreed to establish an autonomous Bulgaria. In practice, this new state was little more than a Russian satellite, with Alexander controlling key government appointments even after the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1879.

Alexander III (1845–94), Tsar of RUSSIA (1881–94). In sharp contrast to his father ALEXANDER II, he was bitterly opposed to liberalization. His reign was characterized by deeply reactionary measures, including rigid censorship and heavy-handed policing. These methods were often counter-productive, leading to greater unrest and political opposition. Alexander championed a policy of RUSSIFICATION, especially with regard to POLAND, which caused widespread resentment among his empire's many subject minorities. In particular, the tsar sanctioned anti-Jewish measures (see ANTISEMITISM) mainly to divert the attention of the peasants from the absence of tangible improvements in their conditions. Protectionism, the development of a railway network, and heavy foreign investment resulted in a dramatic growth of INDUSTRIALIZATION during Alexander's reign. In foreign policy, this period witnessed a rapprochement with France, but the tsar's hostility to Alexander of Battenberg, ruler of BULGARIA, led to poor relations with a state that had hitherto been a virtual Russian satellite.

Alfonso XII (1857–85), King of SPAIN (1874–85). Son of Isabella II, he was forced into an early exile following the revolt of 1868 (see CARLISM). He was educated in Austria, France, and England, where he attended Sandhurst. In 1870 Isabella abdicated in his favor, and four years later he was proclaimed king after the collapse of the First Republic. Alfonso was a generally popular ruler, who offered Spain hopes of greater political stability. He ended the Carlist civil war, and oversaw the proclamation of a new constitution that enabled the two principal parties, the aristocratic Conservatives and the middle-class Liberals, to alternate in government. After his premature death from tuberculosis, his second wife, Maria Cristina, served as regent during the minority of his posthumously-born son, ALFONSO XIII.

Alfonso XIII (1886–1941), King of SPAIN (1886–1931). As ALFONSO XII'S posthumous son, he effectively began his rulership only in 1902. This followed a period of regency by his mother Queen Maria Cristina, during which the Spanish–American War of 1898 led to the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Within Spain he was always an unpopular figure (the target of five assassination attempts), constantly troubled by left-wing and Catalan agitation. He responded with a brutality that brought him international condemnation. Alfonso kept Spain out of World War I, yet seemed incapable of halting the general decline of his country's international standing. In 1921 the Spanish army suffered a huge reverse in the Rif war when defeated by Moroccan tribesmen at Annual. To quell growing domestic disquiet, Alfonso paved the way for the dictatorship of Miguel PRIMO DE RIVERA (1923–30), though this too was unsuccessful. With the restoration of elections in 1931, a SECOND REPUBLIC was inaugurated and Alfonso went into exile in Italy where he remained until his death. He abdicated formally in 1940, and the monarchy was not restored until his grandson, JUAN CARLOS I, came to the throne at the end of the FRANCO regime in 1975.

Algeciras Conference (see under MOROCCAN CRISES)

Algerian War (1954–62). Acquired in 1830, Algeria was the most precious of France's colonies. It was the closest to metropolitan soil; it had become the object of great efforts to entrench French culture; it was administered as part of mainland France; and it was increasingly seen as economically valuable because of oil deposits, though gas eventually proved to be its greatest natural asset. An Algerian nationalist movement (see NATIONALISM) began to form in the 1920s and 1930s. After World War II the FOURTH REPUBLIC failed to fulfill its initial promises about greater political participation for the majority population of MUSLIMS. In response, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN, formed in 1952) prepared an armed insurrection. This was launched on November 1, 1954, the Feast of All Saints, when the largely Catholic colonial community would be caught unawares. The colonists, numbering around 1 million in an overall population of 9 million, were of French, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese origin, and were known as pieds noirs, due to the black shoes that distinguished them from the Arabs who walked barefoot or in sandals. Politically they were generally of the right, and wanted to remain part of the empire. This was also the view of the Armée d'Afrique, the French forces stationed in Algeria, who retained a suspicion of politicians, especially after the granting of independence to Vietnam in 1954 and the mishandling of the SUEZ CRISIS of 1956. The military stooped to brutal tactics to crush the FLN, often resorting to torture, while the politicians appeared to have no solution other than the use of force. In May 1958, when the moderate Pierre Pflimlin became prime minister, rumor abounded that Paris was going to do a deal with the nationalists. This precipitated a rebellion by the pieds noirs, supported by the army, led by General Massu, who also drew up plans to launch a coup by dropping parachutists into Paris. This crisis caused a meltdown of the Fourth Republic, which effectively voted itself out of existence by bestowing power on DE GAULLE, the only man seemingly capable of resolving the Algerian conundrum. Having established his political base in the shape of the FIFTH REPUBLIC, he remained aware that Algeria could destroy his presidency, and thus he played his cards close to his chest, visiting the colony when need arose. In all probability he wanted Algeria to retain an association with France, short of full-blown independence. He was, however, enough of a nationalist to understand the nationalism of others, and accepted that the status quo could not continue. Above all, he wanted to negotiate from a position of strength and therefore intensified the military conflict against the FLN. Politically, however, the nationalists had the upper hand, forming the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic in 1961. Meanwhile, the army gave further evidence of its unreasonableness. After Massu had been recalled to Paris it participated in the “week of barricades” in January 1960, and then attempted a coup in April 1961. When this was crushed and a French referendum indicated clear majority support for independence, the campaign to retain Algeria went underground. The newly-formed Organisation de l'Armée Secrète attempted to assassinate de Gaulle, and a huge nationalist demonstration in Paris on October 17, 1961 was brutally dispersed by the police, who may have murdered some 400 protesters. With the death toll rising in Algeria itself, with continuing media exposure of army brutalities, and with opposition mounting against conscription to sustain the war, de Gaulle still hesitated. The result was that thousands more died needlessly, but ultimately an agreement on independence was concluded at Evian in March 1962. Overwhelmingly endorsed by further referendums in France and Algeria, this became effective in July. Though de Gaulle made this political necessity appear a victory for his diplomacy, no-one triumphed in this war. Liberated Algeria underwent prolonged domestic instability, while many pieds noirs who emigrated to France encountered hostility and experienced a difficult cultural adaptation. For the French collective psyche, Algeria was a painful memory and it is only recently that the atrocities committed there, by both sides, have been acknowledged.

Alsace-Lorraine Area of present-day northeastern France, most of which was incorporated into Germany between 1871 and 1918 and again during World War II. Having previously belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, Alsace was annexed by France in 1697; the previously independent duchy of Lorraine was similarly acquired in 1766. However, German influence persisted strongly in Alsace and to a lesser extent in Lorraine. Following the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR of 1870–1, nearly all of the former region and most of the latter was claimed by the new Reich. It was only at this point in their history that Alsace and Lorraine became firmly bracketed together. Within the federalized state structure of the GERMAN EMPIRE, they were combined into a distinctive Reichsland (“imperial territory”) that served as a buffer zone against France. Its inhabitants bitterly resented the fact that so little autonomy was conceded to it until 1911. Two years later there were violent demonstrations against the Germany military presence at Saverne in Alsace (see ZABERN AFFAIR). Between 1871 and 1918 there was also rapid economic development: Alsace possessed important coal, iron, and potash deposits, while Lorraine boasted a sizeable textile industry. It was partially for their economic value, but equally for their symbolic importance, that France sought to reacquire the two regions in 1914. They became the scene of prolonged and bitter fighting during WORLD WAR I, and on the announcement of the armistice in November 1918 they promptly declared their independence. They were, however, quickly reintegrated back into France, and many Germans suffered expulsion. Despite the Protestant presence in and around Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine was generally characterized by strong CATHOLICISM and was not initially subjected to the anticlerical legislation previously introduced in France during the 1880s and early 1900s; when the HERRIOT government attempted to enforce these measures in 1924, there was a notable backlash. In 1940 the area was again taken directly into Germany, being earmarked for resettlement by Prussians. A heavy-handed process of Germanization was introduced and some 105,000 unwanted Alsace-Lorrainers were herded into cattle trucks and packed off to Lyon. The men who remained were subject to German conscription. A small number, hostile to France, enlisted in the Waffen SS (see SCHUTZSTAFFEL) and were later involved in the ORADOUR MASSACRE and the last-ditch defense of Berlin. Such episodes bequeathed a difficult legacy when Alsace-Lorraine was restored to France in 1945. Tough cultural policies were again pursued, particularly with regard to marginalization of German-language usage. There have recently been attempts to revitalize the region's unique historical heritage and Strasbourg has been promoted as a symbol of Franco-German harmony, yet France has remained reluctant about signing the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on the treatment of national minorities.

Alto Adige (see SOUTH TYROL)

Amendola, Giovanni (1882–1926), Italian journalist, intellectual, and politician, remembered particularly for his opposition to MUSSOLINI. While a philosopher at the University of Pisa, he became increasingly attracted to the world of newspapers and politics. A member of the Liberal party, he was a keen supporter of Italy's involvement in World War I, believing this would complete the work of the RISORGIMENTO. Having been elected a parliamentary deputy for Salerno, he was appointed minister for colonies in 1922, and supported the liberal-democratic state against FASCISM. In 1924 he made an unsuccessful attempt to become prime minister. Due to the outspokenness of his articles for Il Mondo, he became, like MATTEOTTI, one of the early victims of Mussolini's regime. In 1926 he died from injuries suffered after a beating by the Duce's blackshirts. His son Giorgio later became a prominent Communist politician.

Amiens, Treaty of Agreement signed on March 27, 1802 between Britain and France, with the engagement of Spain and the BATAVIAN REPUBLIC, which brought peace to Europe for the first time in ten years. The Second Coalition, formed in 1798 with Britain, Austria and Russia at its core, to challenge the future NAPOLEON I (see also NAPOLEONIC WARS), fell apart after the defeat of Austria in the second Italian campaign and ensuing French victories in Germany. Britain was not only left isolated but also faced financial costs and loss of trade that made the conflict unpopular. The resignation of William Pitt, the Younger, in February 1801 removed the statesman keenest on prosecuting the struggle to the bitter end, and his successor, Addington, sought peace with France. When preliminaries were signed in October 1801, the French negotiator, Lauriston, was taken from his carriage and fêted by the London crowd. The terms of the Amiens treaty were advantageous to France. Its European conquests were implicitly conceded and it was required only to recognize the integrity and independence of Naples, Portugal, and the Batavian Republic. Egypt was not explicitly mentioned, but its return to Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE) was implied by the clause recognizing the integrity of the Ottoman territories. Britain, for its part, agreed to return all colonial conquests, except for Trinidad (formerly Spanish) and Ceylon (formerly Dutch), and to evacuate Elba and Malta, with the latter being restored to the Knights of St John. The Ionian islands would become independent. Speaking later in exile, Napoleon declared that with the Amiens treaty, “I thought that the fate of France and Europe, and my own destiny, were permanently fixed; I hoped that war was at an end.” In practice, the agreement proved little more than an armed truce. Napoleon maintained garrisons in Naples and the Dutch ports, annexed PIEDMONT, and forced an alliance upon the Helvetic Confederation (see SWITZERLAND), while inciting Spain to attack Portugal, an ally of Great Britain – actions which were all against either the letter or the spirit of the treaty. Although free trade had not been part of the peace settlement, the British were particularly angered by Napoleon's establishment of a trading monopoly on the West Indies and the imposition of high tariffs elsewhere, which were designed to restrict their own merchant activity. British forces were not evacuated from Malta, and when a demand that French troops should leave the Batavian and Helvetic Republics was rejected, Britain declared war on France in May 1803.

Amsterdam, Treaty of This agreement, signed in October 1997 and effective from May 1999, amended the 1992 MAASTRICHT TREATY. Institutional reform was deemed essential given the likely enlargement of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION to accommodate former communist states. Negotiations proved particularly arduous as some existing members of the European Union (EU) were fearful about losing their ascendancy. Proclaiming the need for more democratic structures, Amsterdam strengthened the powers of the European parliament, introduced Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers, envisaged the eventual creation of a High Representative for EU foreign policy, and incorporated into European law the SCHENGEN AGREEMENT on freer movement of people. Concern about border controls did, however, lead to a toughening of health and consumer legislation. The treaty also made provision for differing speeds of integration, allowing states the chance of closer cooperation on particular issues. As part of this complex agreement, Britain abandoned its earlier opt-out to the Social Chapter. Amsterdam was nonetheless criticized for insufficient boldness in overhauling decision-making procedures originally designed to accommodate “THE SIX.”

anarchism Derived from ancient Greek anarkhia (“without a ruler”), this term denotes belief that abolition of the state is an essential precondition for the fulfillment of individual freedom and happiness. As such, anarchism has also become frequently associated with indiscriminate violence against governing authority. For example, during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789, “anarchist” was a label pejoratively applied to the SANS- CULOTTES and to the so-called “federalists” (see FEDERALISM[2]). However, many of the most notable advocates of anarchism - such as William Godwin (see WOLLSTONECRAFT), PROUDHON, KROPOTKIN, and Leo Tolstoy – have been utopian in outlook, relying more on the power of education than of mere force. It was towards the end of the nineteenth century that the ideology generally acquired its blackest reputation. Particularly influenced by Enrico Malatesta, an Italian, and from the Russian side both by BAKUNIN and the related movement of NIHILISM, anarchists conducted a series of spectacular political assassinations (see TERRORISM). Victims included Tsar ALEXANDER II in 1881 and Umberto I of Italy in 1900. Both in Spain and Italy, activists formed political parties, though these were extremely loose in discipline. In France anarchism drew on the spirit of the PARIS COMMUNE, and, as promoted by the Jura Federation, formed one wing of the First INTERNATIONAL. Heavy borrowings of anarchist ideas featured also in SYNDICALISM, with its advocacy of a general strike to achieve political change and seizure of the industrial apparatus (see also SOREL; TRADE UNIONISM). In a twentieth-century context, anarchism found firmest expression in the RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917 and the SPANISH CIVIL WAR. The BOLSHEVIK message of “all power to the SOVIETS” seemed to idealize a withering of state power, but turned out to mean something utterly different in practice. TROTSKY would brutally suppress the insurrectionary anarchist army led by Nestor Makhno which, in the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, strove to free the Ukrainians from central controls, and would be equally ruthless in crushing the KRONSTADT RISING. In the Spanish case, anarchism was promoted by the CONFEDERACIÓN NACIONAL DEL TRABAJO, whose attempts to organize peasant collectives and workers’ cooperatives were nonetheless handicapped by the scale of the civil struggle. WORLD WAR II and the extension of Soviet control over much of eastern Europe appeared to have killed off anarchism as a significant force. Even so, it was revived in the late 1950s by the New Left, disillusioned with Moscow's brand of COMMUNISM, and went on to influence the leaders of the STUDENT REVOLTS OF 1968. Thereafter the destructive spirit of anarchy was embraced by terrorist organizations such as the BAADER–MEINHOF GROUP and the RED BRIGADES. The ideology had a far more positive and constructive influence on the movements of FEMINISM, ENVIRONMENTALISM, and personal liberation which flowered from the experiences of the 1960s and drew on the lessons of direct action and peaceful protest. It also found a cultural voice in punk music and fashion.

Ancien Regime French term (with ancien here meaning “former” rather than “old”) employed to denote the governmental, social, and political structures of France and, by extension, the rest of Europe, before 1789. The expression became common in the debates surrounding the establishment of a new constitution in the summer of 1790 (see also FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789). Particularly after the fall of the French monarchy, it was used derogatively to refer to the existence of privilege, the sale of office, a despotic monarchy, an unequal corporate society with rankings based on “estates” and “orders,” and a backward “feudal” economy, all of which had been swept away by the revolutionaries in their attempt to inaugurate an entirely new era. (See also ARISTOCRACY; AUGUST DECREES; ENLIGHTENMENT; LOUIS XVI; and Map 1)

Andorra (see MICRO-STATES[1])

Andrássy, Count Gyula Name borne by two notable Hungarian politicians.

[1] Following the AUSGLEICH in the HABSBURG EMPIRE, the elder Andrássy (1823–90) was the first prime minister of HUNGARY (1867–71) and then foreign minister of the Dual Monarchy (1871–9). This Andrássy was a supporter of KOSSUTH both in the Diet of 1847 and during the Hungarian revolution of 1848–9 (see REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9). Sentenced to death in absentia, he remained in exile until given an amnesty in 1858. By this stage Andrássy had broken with Kossuth and moved into the more moderate camp of DEÁK that was prepared to compromise with the Habsburg dynasty in return for concessions to Hungary. As prime minister, Andrássy sought to defend the Hungarian – or rather the Magyar – interest within the Dual Monarchy; as foreign minister, he was eager to avoid revengeful confrontation with Prussia, and, after 1871, sought good relations with BISMARCK'S newly-established GERMAN EMPIRE (see also DUAL ALLIANCE). He was also responsible for an increasing Habsburg focus on the BALKANS.

[2] The younger Andrássy (1860–1929) was the son of the above. In the 1890s he emerged as a fierce champion of the Ausgleich. Interior Minister of Hungary from 1900, he fell out with the autocratic prime minister Count Istvan TISZA and left his Liberal Party in 1904. The following year he founded the Constitutional Party, which formed part of Hungary's governing coalition until 1910. He remained in opposition after electoral defeats, until appointed imperial foreign minister in October 1918. His principal act at the end of the Habsburg era was an abortive approach to US President Wilson for a separate Hungarian peace. In 1919 Andrássy opposed the Hungarian Soviet Republic of Béla KUN. He continued campaigning for a Habsburg restoration until his death.

Andreotti, Giulio (1919–), Italian Prime Minister (1972–3, 1976–9, 1989–92). Born in Rome, he studied for the bar before involving himself in politics and becoming president of the Catholic Action student movement in 1942. After World War II he joined the Christian Democratic Party (see CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY) and quickly rose to prominence under DE GASPERI. Until his retirement from active politics in 1992, he served in virtually every post-war Italian cabinet, holding the portfolios of foreign affairs (1983–9), defense (1959–66, 1974), and the interior (1954, 1978). His survival indicated that Italian liberal democracy was not as unstable as sometimes supposed, but it also raised questions about corruption. In 1996 he was charged with involvement in the 1979 murder of Mino Pecorelli, a journalist who had been about to publish damning criticism of him by the former prime minister, MORO. Andreotti was initially acquitted in 1999. After a prosecution appeal he was then sentenced in 2002 to 24 years' detention, but finally managed to secure a second acquittal in 2003. In that same year he also stood trial in Sicily for alleged MAFIA connections, eventually walking free partly because several of the charges violated a statute of limitations.

Andropov, Yuri (1914–84), General Secretary of the Communist Party of the SOVIET UNION (1982–4) and President (1983–4). As ambassador in Budapest from 1954 to 1962, he had advocated decisive suppression of the HUNGARIAN RISING OF 1956 and, more generally, had urged that all satellite states of the Eastern bloc should conform strictly to the Kremlin's policy demands. From 1967 to 1982 Andropov headed the KGB and greatly improved its efficiency. There is some evidence that, when he succeeded BREZHNEV as Soviet leader, he had economic and other reforms firmly in mind. However, ill-health and brevity of tenure prevented their implementation. His most important achievement may well have been to promote the career of GORBACHEV who, after the ailing CHERNENKO'S similarly short period of leadership, would become general secretary in 1985 – with eventual consequences far more dramatic than any that Andropov could have foreseen or desired.

Anglo-French Union A proposal made by CHURCHILL (June 16, 1940) early in WORLD WAR II to translate the Anglo-French alliance into a political merger so as to keep France in the battle against Germany. The suggestion had originated two days earlier at a meeting between French and British representatives in London. One of those present was MONNET, later a leading advocate of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION. Churchill was initially skeptical about the idea, yet having visited France on June 11 and 13, he was aware that the resolve of REYNAUD'S cabinet was faltering and that it was close to requesting an armistice. The suggestion about union was read down the phone by DE GAULLE, then in London, to the French premier on the afternoon of June 16. Reynaud was buoyed by the scheme, yet other colleagues were less impressed, believing that the war was already over and that this was merely a ruse by perfidious Albion to acquire French colonies. Having already failed to enlist American support for continuation of the war, Reynaud resigned late the same day. Thus he made way for PÉTAIN who quickly concluded the Franco-German armistice. Though some in the British government were relieved that Churchill's proposal had failed, the brusqueness of its dismissal was deeply resented, and contributed to making Britain's post-1945 dealings with France all the more cautious. In September 1956, during the SUEZ CRISIS, the UK premier EDEN swiftly rebuffed a secret bid from his French counterpart, Guy Mollet, to open even more implausible negotiations on this same topic.

Anglo-German naval agreement Accord signed in 1935 limiting the number of German surface vessels to 35 percent of the combined strength of British and Commonwealth navies, and allowing equality in numbers of submarines. The British took the initiative, being keen to avoid a costly European naval race similar to the pre-1914 one, and anxious about the threat to their overseas possessions posed by Japan's fleet enlargement. The agreement was ill-judged. Germany had no intention of constructing a larger fleet; the accord sanctioned a breach of the VERSAILLES TREATY'S rearmament provisions; and Britain's failure to consult with other powers weakened both the LEAGUE OF NATIONS and the STRESA FRONT.

Anglo-Russian Entente Agreement signed on August 31, 1907 in St Petersburg, which seemingly confirmed the division of Europe into two blocs, with the TRIPLE ALLIANCE of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy arrayed against the FRANCO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE and the Anglo-French ENTENTE CORDIALE. The Anglo-Russian accord aimed to resolve longstanding disputes over imperial borders in Afghanistan, Persia, and Tibet. On Britain's side, the arrangement was further acknowledgment that it now viewed Germany, not France, as its chief enemy; for the tsarist regime, humbled in the RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR, it was a means of deterring German encroachment. Although it was not a formal military alliance, the Anglo-Russian agreement helped to provide the basis for the TRIPLE ENTENTE that enabled Britain, France, and Russia to enter WORLD WAR I as allies.

Anschluss This German word for “annexation” has been applied most notably to union between Germany and Austria. Although denied to each of them in 1919 under the Treaties of VERSAILLES and ST GERMAIN, this was achieved by HITLER in March 1938 without resort to war. The link was then dissolved after his defeat in 1945.

anticlericalism A catch-all term denoting opposition to the institutional power of the church in public and private life. Specialists differentiate between intellectual, state, and popular anticlericalism. The phenomenon can be traced back to the beginnings of organized religions but was especially directed against the Roman Catholic Church (see CATHOLICISM). Anticlericalism, which might coexist with high levels of piety, had been present throughout the Middle Ages and played a role in the Protestant Reformation. However, the ideological origins of modern anticlericalism lay with the Scientific Revolution and the ENLIGHTENMENT when writers, especially those in France such as Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau, not only drew attention to abuses within the Catholic Church and its undeserved possession of civil privileges, but also questioned the claims of revealed religion. Though credited with the spread of SECULARIZATION, the Enlightenment writers were generally deist in outlook rather than atheist, and their ideas were in any event limited in their diffusion. By contrast, in the nineteenth century the existence of a transcendent being was more widely challenged by further ideologies, including POSITIVISM, Marxism, and Darwinism (see MARX; SOCIAL DARWINISM).

In the modern era, the first major instance of state-sponsored anticlericalism occurred during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. Here it reached particular intensity during the period of DECHRISTIANIZATION[2], when the structures, personnel and beliefs of Catholicism were attacked wholesale and efforts were made to build a new nation based on revolutionary values. France has since been viewed as the anticlerical state par excellence. Anticlericalism certainly constituted a major strand within French politics throughout the nineteenth century, and during the THIRD REPUBLIC a concerted attempt was made to reduce clerical influence within public life, most notably with regard to EDUCATION. However, the anticlerical campaigns pursued in France were arguably less intensive than the German KULTURKAMPF, which was emulated in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and Switzerland. Post-unification Italy also saw a struggle between church and state, especially over the pope's territorial claims. Perhaps the only part of Catholic Europe in the late nineteenth century to escape a sustained anticlerical onslaught from government was the Iberian peninsula, though here too there were some attempts to restrict ecclesiastical authority. In all these instances, the state was asserting its right to determine membership of the nation, and it is no surprise that the key battlegrounds were marriage, schooling, and government appointments. The struggles were fiercest in Catholic countries since here the church sought to retain its separate status and maintained a supranational loyalty to the papacy. Nonetheless anticlerical sentiments were not absent from Protestant states (e.g. in debates on possible disestablishment of the Church of England).

By 1914 most of these battles over marriage and education were resolved in favor of state power, thus ensuring that governmental anticlericalism was less of a force in the twentieth century. Indeed, in some countries Catholic hierarchies looked to fascist/traditionalist regimes, such as those of MUSSOLINI in Italy and FRANCO in Spain, in the hope that they would bring a return to older moral certainties and reverse institutionalized secularism. However, anticlericalism still found expression in the Spanish SECOND REPUBLIC. The SOVIET UNION'S avowedly atheist ideology led to attempts to suppress opposing religious belief systems, with the Russian ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY as the main target. In Germany under NAZISM religious opponents of the regime, of whatever denomination, were similarly persecuted.

Popular anticlericalism persisted throughout the modern epoch and was felt at various levels of society. Peasants (see RURAL SOCIETY), ARTISANS, and other members of the WORKING CLASS all had good reason to begrudge the material wealth of the established churches, and disliked their frequent identification with the socio-political elites, though these resentments rarely resulted in a complete abandonment of religious practice. Within Catholic Europe, men especially were suspicious of clerical attempts to moralize and encroach on private and sexual matters in the confessional. Anticlericalism was also expressed by members of the burgeoning middle class, especially doctors who mocked the obscurantism of the priesthood and sought to establish their own presence within the social hierarchy. In western Europe, at least, it is telling that since 1945 popular anticlericalism has diminished with the weakened power of established churches and the professionalization of society, though the growing presence of MUSLIMS has refocused attention on issues of clerical authority.

Anti-Comintern Pact Agreement signed between Germany and Japan on November 25, 1936 that aimed to combat international COMMUNISM by sharing intelligence on parties belonging to the Comintern (see THE INTERNATIONAL). Both states also promised not to sign any agreement with the SOVIET UNION and, though the Pact was not a military alliance, they undertook to defend their “mutual interests.” In the event of either country finding itself at war with the USSR, the other party pledged NEUTRALITY. Japan was wary of entangling itself in any European conflict and was seeking to strengthen its hand against Soviet influence in China. As part of the deal, HITLER'S regime also agreed to recognize the Japanese puppet state of Manchuria. In 1937 the Pact was joined by MUSSOLINI'S Italy, which was already party to the Rome-Berlin AXIS dating from the previous year. In 1939 Hitler effectively reneged on his undertakings to Japan by making the NAZI-SOVIET PACT. However, the Anti-Comintern agreements of 1936–7 still helped to form the basis for the Tripartite Pact of September 1940 involving a Japanese alliance with Germany and Italy during much of WORLD WAR II. These accords were again influential in 1941 when several states in alliance with or satellite to Hitler's regime, as well as Spain and the Chinese Nationalist government in Nanjing, made similar commitment to the defeat of communism.

antisemitism Promotion of opinions, attitudes, or practices hostile to JEWS. Though this term did not come into use until the 1870s, the phenomenon that it covers (an animosity specifically directed toward this single branch of a much wider “Semitic” ethnic category which nonetheless embraces, for example, the Arab peoples too) was well entrenched in European society long before the modern era. Antisemitism so defined was originally stimulated by belief that the descendants of Jews who had lived during the biblical epoch must continue to bear responsibility for Christ's death, and thus for nothing less than deicide. The processes of SECULARIZATION from the later eighteenth century onward did less to dispel this view than to permit its survival within a widening range of antisemitic reproaches. Often centered on allegations about international conspiracy, these appeared in nearly every country affected by the diaspora of European Jews. However, there was no simple correlation between the virulence of such scapegoating and the scale of the Jewish minority actually present in any particular society. When antisemitism came from the left, it was typically directed against the BANKING and other financial networks that families such as the Rothschilds had created as part of the infrastructure essential to CAPITALISM. Conversely, the assaults from the right tended to use figures such as MARX to symbolize Jewish control over the revolutionary forces of a SOCIALISM or COMMUNISM lacking roots in any distinctively national allegiance.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the cultural and religious criteria previously used to support assertions about Jewish separateness, and indeed inferiority, became less important than those focused on the supposedly innate features of racial biology (see RACISM; SOCIAL DARWINISM). This shift towards the primacy of nature over nurture sharpened debate as to how far Jews could or should be assimilated into “host” societies. The emergence of ZIONISM in the 1890s as an alternative assertion of nation-statehood (see NATIONALISM) was itself a response to the waning of assimilationist possibilities, as an increasingly uncompromising antisemitism became evident, for example, through the DREYFUS AFFAIR in France and the politics of Mayor LUEGER'S Vienna. There was also an intensification of tsarist POGROMS in Russia, which prompted a westward MIGRATION of Jews that fuelled fears concerning their increased presence elsewhere. By the 1920s and 1930s antisemitism had become a regular feature of most varieties of European FASCISM. It appeared, most notably, as the central element in the racist ideology propounded in Germany by HITLER, whose NAZISM specifically exploited the anxieties both about Jewish finance capitalism and about the Judaeo-Bolshevik threat. Under his dictatorship the kind of discrimination embodied in the NUREMBERG LAWS of 1935 was soon radicalized into an effort to achieve the so-called FINAL SOLUTION to the Jewish question – a literally dehumanizing endeavor in which many non-Germans too became complicit. Despite the widespread condemnation heaped upon this genocidal project after the Nazi defeat, antisemitism persisted as a quite prominent feature of politics in the SOVIET UNION and in much of the Eastern bloc. It has also characterized neo-fascist minority parties wherever in Europe these have managed to surface at any time since 1945. Equally notable, however, is the fact that less unguarded versions of anti-Jewish feeling have remained a more subtly corrosive part of the cultural fabric of many European societies even down to the present epoch.

Antonescu, Ion (1886–1946), Prime Minister of ROMANIA (1940–4). Born of middle-class parentage, he entered the army and served with distinction in World War I. In 1932 he was appointed minister of war, and in September 1940 became premier on the abdication of King CAROL II, who was succeeded by Michael I. The new king's powers were largely ceremonial. Real authority lay with Antonescu who had himself appointed Conducător (Leader). His dictatorship operated initially with the support of the IRON GUARD, though this movement was suppressed in early 1941 for fear that it might become a state within a state. In foreign policy Antonescu took Romania firmly into the German camp, and he personally took part in Operation BARBAROSSA, helping to reconquer Bessarabia and BUKOVINA which had been lost to the SOVIET UNION in June 1940. Antonescu's popularity declined steeply in 1943 when Romanian armies suffered heavy losses inside the USSR (see also STALINGRAD, BATTLE OF). There was also growing disquiet at internal repressive measures, which resulted in the murder of 350,000 JEWS and Gypsies. Aware of the way in which the war was turning, in 1943 Antonescu attempted peace negotiations with the Allies, but could not agree terms. In August 1944, with the RED ARMY close by, King Michael had Antonescu arrested, and sought an armistice. Two years later, Antonescu was tried for treason and executed by the new Communist-dominated government in Bucharest.

apparatchik Russian term (plural apparatchiki) denoting in the SOVIET UNION any functionary of the Communist Party–state apparatus. The BOLSHEVIK takeover (see also RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917) heralded massive bureaucratization, together with the fusion of party and state. Thus apparatchiki were to be found in all walks of life – for example, as factory managers, inspectors, accountants, and legal officials. Better paid and rewarded than other workers, they have sometimes been called technocrats, though they were often put in charge of jobs with little prior training, and frequently their tasks were mind-numbingly dull. Inevitably they became associated with the inflexible mindset of the Communist party, and the term apparatchik became an abusive one. At the time of the GREAT PURGES and of WORLD WAR II, however, such unthinking servants of the state were greatly feared. The word has since come to be applied even beyond the Russian context, to describe any unimaginative administrator faithfully performing routine chores within some political system.

appeasement Foreign policy designed to avoid war by making concessions. The term is most readily associated with the British and French efforts made before WORLD WAR II to conciliate HITLER and, to a lesser degree, MUSSOLINI. It acquired an increasingly derogatory meaning as such attempts were thought to have only encouraged German expansionism. The first volume of CHURCHILL'S war memoirs, The Gathering Storm (1948), poured scorn on Neville Chamberlain's efforts to placate Berlin. During the 1930s, however, many had regarded this policy as eminently sensible, and it should not be associated simply with one individual. Given the slaughter of 1914–18, antiwar sentiments among the public were strong. It is also questionable whether the British or French governments, so deeply fearful about Soviet intentions, fully recognized the danger posed by Nazi Germany until late in the day. Strategic and economic considerations also influenced the Anglo-French endeavors to buy time. In the case of Britain, overstretched in its safeguarding of empire, rearmament proceeded slowly. Requiring large-scale importation of raw materials, it was seen as prohibitively expensive under the conditions of the GREAT DEPRESSION[2]. Skilled labor too was in short supply, while big business disliked government interference. It was also calculated that, in the event of another war, US money would not be as forthcoming as in 1914–18. Logic thus dictated that Britain could not immediately commit to a wholesale and unsustainable rearmament program. In France, the possibility of another conflict with Germany produced a passive mentality together with a defensive strategy centered on construction of the MAGINOT LINE. Anti-war feeling was also stronger in France than in Britain – understandably so given the scale of the human and material losses incurred in the 1914–18 conflict – and this affected both the left and, perhaps even more markedly, the right. The political IMMOBILISME of the 1930s compounded matters by making decision-making more difficult, though the POPULAR FRONT at least initiated a rearmament program. Whatever its origins, appeasement permitted Hitler to make a series of gambles, involving the RHINELAND CRISIS, the ANSCHLUSS with Austria, and the acquisition of the SUDETENLAND (see also MUNICH AGREEMENT). Each of these occasions has been interpreted as a “lost opportunity” for discouraging German ambitions; but it is also arguable that a firmer Anglo-French stance would simply have hastened war. Ultimately, the Nazi Führer's appropriation of the rest of CZECHOSLOVAKIA in March 1939 forced Britain and France to embrace a “policy of guarantees” that committed them to the defense of Greece, Romania, and Poland. It remains debatable, however, whether either country abandoned appeasement until the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; indeed, some historians would contend that much of this mentality survived into the period of so-called “PHONEY WAR” and that, in France, it continued even longer as a prop to the VICHY REGIME. Though appeasement failed, we now have a better understanding as to why it was attempted. In this respect, it is telling that the Soviet Union ventured its own version through the NAZI–SOVIET PACT – perhaps an indication that no foreign policy, however hard or soft, could easily have deterred Hitler.

aristocracy Derived from Greek aristokratia (“power of the best”), this term evolved into a definition of government by the nobly born, and later became used still more often to identify the highest CLASS within certain societies. This second sense is the one chiefly encountered in histories of modern Europe. There it typically describes holders of hereditary titles, and sometimes of hereditary offices too, whose authority was normally entwined with the maintenance of MONARCHISM and the promotion of CONSERVATISM in general.

Towards the end of the ANCIEN REGIME the size of the aristocratic order varied widely between different countries, though everywhere its members formed a minority of the population. At one extreme were Genoa and Denmark, with 128 and 215 noble families respectively. Standing in the middle were France, where nobles comprised perhaps 1 in every 255 inhabitants, and Britain where some members of the non-titled gentry should be added to the 220 peers. Broadly similar ratios existed in Prussia and the Italian states, as well as in Russia (where, however, difficulties of nomenclature complicate the situation). On the other hand, as much as 6 percent of the population in Hungary and the Iberian peninsula, and perhaps 10 percent of Poles (see SZLACHTA), claimed noble status. In practice, aristocratic power depended upon three things: social distinction, exercise of political authority, and economic strength generally deriving from landownership (see also RURAL SOCIETY). All of these would come under various forms of assault during the nineteenth century, and thus it is appropriate to talk about a general decline of the aristocracy over that period. However, it was not until WORLD WAR I that this caste decisively lost its ascendancy.

The FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 marked the first great attack on the aristocracy, which not only forfeited its privileges but was abolished as a separate order as a result of the AUGUST DECREES. The very term “aristocratic” became one of abuse, as directed against political opponents and even inclement weather. Yet the French aristocracy made a remarkable, if only partial, comeback. Many nobles from the old regime found a place in NAPOLEON I'S restored hierarchy, providing around 25 percent of the imperial nobility. Many more returned to France under the restored BOURBON DYNASTY, and, though LOUIS XVIII did not restore their confiscated lands, they received compensation from CHARLES X. The most extreme of them came to political prominence in 1824, forming the backbone of the so-called ULTRAS. Although the political ambitions of this narrow clique were thwarted after 1830 under the JULY MONARCHY of Louis-Philippe, the nobility at large (including the noblesse de province whose members lived on their estates and came rarely to Paris) continued to exert enormous influence over local affairs, including voting patterns. Traumatized by the Revolution, they generally favored royal authority and a strong role for CATHOLICISM within state and society. During that period of the THIRD REPUBLIC in the 1870s known as the “republic of the dukes,” they were still extraordinarily prominent on the national political scene. But, after 1879 and the triumph of the republican left, few aristocrats held ministerial positions. By the time of World War I nobles were increasingly intermarrying with the wealthy middle classes who held the levers of economic and political power, thus blending together bourgeois wealth and aristocratic social prestige.

The situation of the French nobility had been particularly vulnerable, given the direct threat to their existence represented by “1789.” Yet some other aristocracies had even greater difficulties in recovering from the trauma of the FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS and the NAPOLEONIC WARS. The Genoese and Polish nobilities retained prestige and some of their lands after the disappearance of their respective states, but the latter in particular lost the political power they had previously enjoyed. Overall, however, most of the post- Napoleonic European aristocracy benefited from the determination of the VIENNA CONGRESS, and especially of METTERNICH, to restore wherever feasible those elements of the pre-Revolutionary political and social order that might serve to counter the new radical forces of LIBERALISM and NATIONALISM. There were also more insidious threats to aristocratic dominance during the nineteenth century, though it is easy to exaggerate their scale and intensity. There were, for instance, great disparities of wealth among the nobilities of continental Europe. In its eastern regions some of the most impoverished (liable to be called Krautjunker, or “cabbage lords”) would not survive the ending of SERFDOM and the consequent loss of labor services and cash payments in the long period after 1807 known as that of the Bauernbefreiung (peasant emancipation). Yet most of the agrarian elites weathered the storm. The Prussian JUNKERS, who already owned 40 percent of the land, picked up numerous further pieces of property as peasants were forced to sell up and move on; and these same landowners would also go on to play a major political role in the new GERMAN EMPIRE after 1871. In the emancipation that followed the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9, noble landlords in Austria and Hungary received compensation from the crown or the peasants themselves. Furthermore, both there and on Polish estates the burgeoning supply of cheap labor meant that large landholdings could be farmed more profitably with hired hands than with serfs. This was often the case in Russia too, even after the liberation edict of 1861. Overall, it was not so much emancipation as the international GREAT DEPRESSION[1] of the late nineteenth century that would pose the severest economic challenge to the survival of aristocratic dominance. Even so, the social and political influence of the central and eastern European nobility remained largely intact down to 1918. In Prussia, for example, nobles dominated the upper house of parliament until the eve of World War I, while also constituting more than a quarter of the lower house too. Additionally, the close link between aristocracy and the profession of arms (the original justification for noble privileges) continued unbroken in eastern and western Europe alike. Nobles not only filled a highly disproportionate number of officerships but also overwhelmingly dominated the topmost military positions – something crucial to understanding, for example, the various prejudices revealed in France by the DREYFUS AFFAIR.

It was arguably Britain that witnessed the most effective defense of aristocratic ascendancy during the nineteenth century. In 1875 a mere 700 landowners, the great majority of them aristocrats, still possessed one quarter of the land in England and Wales, much of it protected by entail so that it could not be dispersed on the death of the holder. To be sure, landed income became less significant as rental yields and farming profits declined sharply in the last quarter of the century, and also as INDUSTRIALIZATION created alternative forms of wealth. But the agrarian elite proved remarkably successful in moving into manufacture and commerce as well as intermarrying with wealthy possessors of “new money,” facilitated by the fact that the British nobility was already accustomed to being a relatively open class. Aristocrats also controlled much of local government, even though their influence began to wane following the creation of county councils in 1888. As for the conduct of national affairs, the nobles who constituted the House of Lords continued to be a major force even after successive nineteenth-century Reform Acts had widened the representative capacities of the Commons. It was, for example, not until 1902 that the last peer to hold the premiership (Lord Salisbury) departed from office. By then, however, matters were beginning to change. Aristocratic wealth was being increasingly eroded by taxes on income and then by rising death duties, while on the political front the 1911 Parliament Act severely curtailed the blocking powers hitherto enjoyed by the upper chamber. However, for the aristocracy in the rest of Europe even more directly than in Britain it was the war of 1914–18 that proved cataclysmic. The RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917 eradicated the tsarist nobility or reduced its survivors to penniless émigrés, and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and German empires towards the end of the following year occasioned an even broader dismantling of what remained of aristocratic influence in the European heartlands too. Henceforth, while some measure of social prestige might still stem from hereditary titles, those who bore them were no longer able to exercise the public dominance which their ancestors had once so blithely claimed as a birthright.

Armenian genocide Massacres conducted within the Ottoman empire (see TURKEY AND EUROPE) during WORLD WAR I. Early in 1915 the Turkish authorities ordered the enforced migration or deportation of large numbers of their own Christian Armenian population to Syria and Palestine, and it is now reliably estimated that at least 1 million victims were killed during this process. These actions, though viewed by Turkey as an entirely domestic matter, were promptly condemned by the Allies as “crimes against humanity and civilization.” Attempts made during the PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT to bring the perpetrators to justice had only marginal effect, and this failure deepened when the new ATATÜRK regime repudiated the 1920 SÈVRES TREATY and obtained less humiliating terms through the LAUSANNE TREATY of 1923. Thus the latter included a blanket “amnesty” for the whole period 1914–22. By 1939 international amnesia was such that HITLER, already developing other plans for mass killing, could reassure his generals by noting the silence which now surrounded the fate of these Armenians. In more recent times, however, the massacres have received renewed attention, becoming generally viewed outside Turkey as a campaign of genocidal intent that pre-dated NAZISM'S bid for a “FINAL SOLUTION” to the Jewish question. The attempts of successive Turkish governments to discredit or suppress such discourse have become widely interpreted as symptoms of their sometimes questionable commitment to the protection of human rights, and thus as evidence that, even in the early twenty-first century, this country remained ill-qualified for full inclusion within the processes of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION.

Arrow Cross One of a number of fascist groupings (see FASCISM) that proliferated in eastern Europe in the interwar period. Founded by Ferenc Szálasi in HUNGARY in 1935 as the Party of National Will, it was reconstituted as the Arrow Cross four years later. Its beliefs comprised a heady mix of Hungarian NATIONALISM, ANTISEMITISM, and purportedly Christian principles. Though condemned by the Vatican in 1938, the Arrow Cross attracted almost half a million members. It briefly held power from October 1944 until the following spring, during which time it contributed to HITLER'S so-called FINAL SOLUTION by assisting with extensive Jewish deportations to Poland. Szálasi and other leaders of the movement were subsequently tried as war criminals by Hungarian courts. (See also HORTHY DE NAGYBÁNYA)

artel Russian term (plural arteli) for a type of cooperative. The origins of arteli are unclear, but they may have developed in those parts of Russia where severe weather made cooperation among tradesmen and craftsmen an absolute necessity within a pre-industrial economy. By the nineteenth century, they had become commonplace both in town and country, and in all manner of trades and crafts (e.g. fishing, transport, and portering). They frequently had their own hierarchy and rules of business. After the RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917, the arteli were inevitably organized on a far more structured basis under the watchful eye of the Communist Party.

artisans Skilled manual workers, distinguished from journeymen through being based in one locality rather than travelling to seek work. Artisans were mainly urban inhabitants, employed in a wide variety of skilled trades (e.g. printing, baking, cobbling, carpentry, blacksmithing, hat-making, and tailoring), as well as highly specialized occupations such as gold- and silver-smithing. The artisan underwent an apprenticeship, and was often better educated and more literate (see LITERACY) than the generality of the popular classes. He was also likely to own his own tools and equipment, renting a small workshop from a local merchant, and enjoying a good relationship with the journeymen vital to his economic wellbeing. Additionally, artisans had a long tradition of organization through guilds, apprenticeships, craft solidarity and labor protests, as well as an identity forged through shared vocabulary and location. Within towns, artisans were usually concentrated in certain districts. They proved extremely adaptable in the face of growing economic pressures, notably those posed by INDUSTRIALIZATION.

Though reasonably affluent, especially when compared to those employed in domestic service and large-scale industry, artisans were subject to economic fluctuations such as food-price inflation due to bad harvests. The rising cost of bread often consumed what little surplus income they enjoyed, meaning that they could not spend on the kind of goods that they themselves produced. Such pressures were felt most spectacularly in the early stages of the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 and the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9 when handworkers were prominent on the barricades. In the latter instance, they were also noticeable for attacking power-driven machinery. The new technology and semi-skilled trades of the Industrial Revolution threatened their livelihoods, as works of good standard could be produced more swiftly and cheaply than before. The need to improve artisanal efficiency meant embracing modern machine tools, for instance sewing machines and motorized looms, as well as adopting new labor and credit practices. In this sense, artisans were not the backward-looking tradesmen that they are sometimes portrayed to be.

Nor were they necessarily militant, and over-ready to down tools. Artisans looked to governments, rather than employers, to ease the economic pressures they faced – e.g. by controlling bread prices. Strikes, which in many parts of nineteenth-century Europe were illegal, were equated with hardship. They were often a protest of last resort, after failure of protracted negotiations with employers and contractors. In this process of arbitration, artisans developed what has been called a sophisticated “counter-culture of resistance,” involving survival strategies where women too were active (see GENDER); indeed, as more men transferred into mass manufacture, many of their vacancies were filled by female labor. Strikes were more commonly linked with TRADE UNIONISM, as it began to displace artisanal forms of organization and mutual aid. Though artisans were increasingly influenced by SOCIALISM, historians differ as to how far they shared a collective CLASS identity with the new urban proletariat (see also WORKING CLASS).

Ultimately it was twentieth-century pressures – the growth of mass consumerism, a market economy and globalization in the West, and state-sponsored industrialization in the Soviet bloc – that spelt the end of the artisans (see also CAPITALISM; FIVE-YEAR PLANS). Many were sucked into large-scale factories as wage-earners; others became mechanics, or shopkeepers. However, artisans remained prominent in those parts of southern Europe least affected by industrialization, and even now some survive in France where parts of industry still rely on small-scale organization.

Aryanism (see under RACISM)

assignats Paper currency employed during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. First authorized in December 1789, the assignat originated as a government bond paying 5 percent interest and secured against the nationalized property of the church. The growing financial deficit, together with a shortage of specie and the failure of the anticipated economic resurgence, led the government to make the assignats legal tender and to double the number in existence in September 1790. Further issues ensued, mainly to help finance the FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS, and assignats equivalent to some 11 billion livres were put into circulation between January 1793 and July 1794. This resulted in their devaluation relative to the metallic coinage. By 1796 the assignat was worth only 0.25 percent of its nominal value, and it was abolished in May 1797.

Atatürk, Kemal (1881–1938), first President of Turkey (1923–38), following the collapse of Ottoman rule (see TURKEY AND EUROPE). Born Mustafa Kemal, he later became popularly known as Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”) – which title was then formally confirmed in 1935 by the parliament of the republican regime whose creation he had led. In 1908–9 he had participated in the rebellion of the YOUNG TURKS against the autocratic sultanate of ABDUL HAMID II, before going on to consolidate his military reputation in the ITALO-TURKISH WAR of 1911 and in the defense of the DARDANELLES four years later. Following Turkey's defeat in WORLD WAR I, he became commander in Anatolia. From there he began in 1919 his campaign against Allied military control and Greek demands for territorial annexations. By April 1920 he had succeeded in bringing disparate Turkish groups into a Grand National Assembly, which then elected him to head a provisional government bent upon supplanting Ottoman authority. His dominance was confirmed by his skilful leadership in the GREEK-TURKISH WAR of 1921–2, which prompted the Allies to abandon the unratified SÈVRES TREATY of 1920 (see also PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT) and to negotiate with him the altogether less punitive LAUSANNE TREATY of July 1923. In the following October, 11 months after the sultanate had been declared abolished, the National Assembly formally inaugurated the Turkish Republic and named him president for life. As leader of the Republican People's Party and aided by strong army backing, Atatürk consolidated an essentially authoritarian mode of governance. Though he set out to modernize Turkey along broadly “western” lines, he did not risk a transition to the kind of multi-party democracy that might well have enabled a strongly Islamic rural peasantry to frustrate his reform program. In order to ensure a fundamentally secular basis for the post-Ottoman state, Atatürk's policies included abolition of the caliphate and restriction of the authority of Islam to directly religious matters. During his presidency, the state assumed a heightened role in industrial and other economic development; female suffrage was introduced; polygamous marriage was outlawed and provision made for secular divorce; Arabic script was officially replaced by the Roman alphabet; and the administrative structures of the army, the civil service, and the educational system were all overhauled. Though he was keen to nurture an enhanced sense of NATIONALISM following Turkey's humiliation at the end of World War I, Atatürk also saw the wisdom of generally orientating the new republic towards NEUTRALITY.

August decrees Far-reaching legislation passed in August 1789 by the CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 which swept away privilege of all kinds and marked the end of the ANCIEN REGIME. On the “Night of August 4,” a number of liberal deputies from the Breton Club – the forerunner of the JACOBINS – had planned to renounce certain rights in order to appease the serious unrest occurring in the countryside, as generated by the GREAT FEAR, hunger, and the peasant belief that the seigneurial system was about to be ended. In the event, the original plan went awry, and deputies from all three orders – nobility, clergy and third estate – were carried away on a wave of enthusiasm. They vied with each other to surrender an extraordinary array of rights, prerogatives, and privileges in the ending of what was termed “feudalism.” Seigneurial rights, seigneurial courts, church tithes, hunting rights, venal offices (i.e. positions purchased by the holder), and the fiscal privileges adhering to towns, provinces, nobles, and clerics, were all abolished. However, when it came to turning the result of the votes into formal decrees, the Assembly shrank back from the full implications of what it had done. It sought to draw a distinction between those aspects of the feudal regime which could be ended outright, such as the corvée (an unpaid labor service on the roads), and those rights regarded as a form of property, for which the holder had to be compensated. The latter category covered many seigneurial dues as well as venal offices. Thus peasants often found that they were expected to compensate their lords for lost rights, or that these were simply commuted into rents.

If the outcome of August 4 was less spectacular than the event itself, the results were still hugely significant. The ending of venality and of provincial privilege allowed the establishment of a uniform system of administration. Loss of the tithe, and the subsequent surrender of clerical property in November, forced the Assembly to find a new method of subsidizing the church which would perforce become a “state” institution. Resenting what was seen as a betrayal over the issue of seigneurial rights, many peasants abandoned support for the Revolution. The ending of aristocratic power and privilege also increased the stream of nobles who chose to emigrate and thereby place themselves firmly in the camp of counter-revolution.

Auschwitz camp (see under CONCENTRATION CAMPS)

Ausgleich Meaning “settlement” or “compromise,” this denotes particularly the reordering of governance across the HABSBURG EMPIRE effected in 1867, the year after defeat in the AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR. It embodied greater devolution of authority from Vienna to Budapest, and conceded to the Magyars much of what was still denied to the Slavic populations. Thus the Ausgleich formed the basis of the Austro-Hungarian “dual monarchy” until its eventual collapse in 1918 (see also HUNGARY; and Map 6).

Austerlitz, Battle of The formation of the Third Coalition in July 1805 led NAPOLEON I to abandon plans for invading England and to march the grande armée from Boulogne to the east. He first defeated an Austrian army at ULM and then confronted an allied force of Austrian and Russian troops north of Vienna. He feigned weakness, first asking for an armistice and then presenting an apparently vulnerable right flank to his enemy. Tsar ALEXANDER I, who had assumed command of the allied force, took the bait. In the ensuing conflict (December 2, 1805), his weakened center was overwhelmed by the French who then shattered the Russian left wing. Two days later the Austrians sued for peace, agreeing to give up territories in Italy and Germany. The Russians retreated home. Austerlitz was one of Napoleon's greatest set-piece victories and, with the defeat of Prussia at JENA-AUERSTÄDT the following year, gave him dominance of the continent. (See also NAPOLEONIC WARS)

Austria For the period up to 1918, the history of modern Austria is best considered within the overall context of the HABSBURG EMPIRE. It was only after that date, when the multi-national imperial system which had long been ruled from Vienna collapsed in the face of defeat at the end of WORLD WAR I, that a distinctively Austrian SUCCESSOR STATE emerged.

What is now known as the First Republic was proclaimed on November 12, 1918. With Karl Renner as chancellor, its provisional government summoned a constituent assembly which, in March 1919, voted for precisely the version of GERMAN UNIFICATION that BISMARCK had spurned – one aspiring to make Austria an integral part of the Reich. Not surprisingly, the ST GERMAIN TREATY imposed by the victorious Allies in September prohibited this option, as well as confirming the wider fragmentation and loss of the previous Habsburg lands. “Rump” Austria thus developed as a self-contained federation (see FEDERALISM[1]), whose politics became increasingly polarized as between Socialist and Christian Social factions. The deepening of the GREAT DEPRESSION[2], accelerated by the collapse of the Austrian BANKING system in 1931, heightened their extremist hostilities. As chancellor from 1932 to 1934, DOLLFUSS persecuted the Socialists and eventually outlawed all parties other than his own Fatherland Front. His attempt at establishing a fascist-style dictatorship (see FASCISM) within an independent Austria ended when he was murdered as the victim of an abortive putsch launched by local Nazis (see NAZISM) keener than he to hasten their country's absorption into “Greater Germany.” His successor, SCHUSCHNIGG, encountered ever stronger annexationist pressures from the Austrian-born HITLER, who attained his goal of ANSCHLUSS in March 1938. This union, which was then more warmly welcomed by the generality of Austrians than they found it convenient later to admit, prevailed until the end of WORLD WAR II.

In 1945 the victorious Allies subjected Austria to a four-power zonal occupation, similar to but separate from that applied to Germany itself. When convenient, they even treated the Austrians as having been amongst the earliest of Hitler's victims rather than as having supplied many of his most willing accomplices. While the Soviet Union certainly insisted on reparations, it did not in this case show the degree of intransigence that inflicted on Germany a dual-state “iron curtain” division between East and West. Thus through the “State Treaty” of 1955 the four powers agreed that, in return for Austria's permanent NEUTRALITY and its acceptance of a continuing ban on any future “Greater German” union, there should be withdrawal of all occupying forces and recognition of full sovereign independence. By then the Second Republic, inaugurated late in 1945 and initially shaped by the restored leadership of the veteran Renner, had already shown its ability to promote parliamentary democracy. During the first twenty years after the war the country accommodated itself to the politics of “grand coalition.” Thereafter, assisted by its generally prosperous economy, Austria also showed the capacity for peaceful alternation between moderate administrations from right and left. Among the postwar leaders KREISKY, who held the chancellorship as a Social Democrat from 1970 to 1983, became particularly notable for the international recognition of his statesmanship. Less encouraging was the case of WALDHEIM, the former UNITED NATIONS chief whose presidency of Austria (1986–91) became mired in allegations about his complicity in Nazi war crimes. While maintaining its formal neutrality, Austria increasingly participated in the processes of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION and in 1995 its 8 million people were incorporated into the European Union. However, the pattern of national politics now began to be complicated by the rise of a xenophobic neo-fascist movement, the so-called Freedom Party principally inspired by Jörg Haider. Much to the consternation of other EU members, during most of the period from 2002 to 2006 this was one of the elements in a governing coalition headed by the conservative People's Party. Thereafter the latter grouping managed to arrange a more conventional “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats. Meanwhile, Haider had broken away from the Freedom Party to create (very much in the same mould) a rival “Alliance for the Future of Austria.” His sudden death in a car crash came shortly after the general election of September 2008 had given these two far-right factions nearly 30 percent of the overall vote, and confirmed them as a potentially dangerous opposition to the more moderate, but weakened, “grand coalition.”

Austrian Netherlands Part of the Low Countries (see also THE NETHERLANDS), corresponding roughly to modern BELGIUM and LUXEMBURG. The Austrian Netherlands comprised the former Spanish Netherlands, minus the seven northern provinces which secured their independence in 1648 and some parcels of land taken over by Louis XIV. The fortunes of these small but strategically vital territories would depend heavily upon the ambitions of their larger neighbors. Under the terms of the Treaty of Rastadt (1714), part of the settlement concluding the War of Spanish Succession, the Spanish Netherlands were transferred to Austrian HABSBURG rule as a bar against further French aggression. During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–8) they were nonetheless overrun by the French. Though the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) returned them to Austrian control, France still cherished ambitions of obtaining them in the subsequent Seven Years War (1756–63). The territories prospered under the regime of benign neglect conducted by Emperor Charles VI and his daughter, Maria-Theresa. However, during the 1780s there was increasing dissatisfaction with the rationalizing policies of Joseph II. These conflicted with the linguistic diversity, local customs, and particularist privileges of the Netherlands. A secret society, “For Altar and Hearth,” was formed to resist Austrian oppression, supported by the Catholic Church (see CATHOLICISM). Resistance was also inspired by events occurring within the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. Open revolt was sparked by the invasion of an armed force of political exiles, led by the lawyer, Van der Noot, in October 1789. The following January, provincial representatives declared the Austrian Netherlands to be the independent United States of Belgium. Most rebels were intensely conservative and wished to entrench existing social and provincial privileges. A faction headed by Vonck, the founder of “For Altar and Hearth,” demanded wider reforms along the French model, but he was forced to flee when thousands of peasants stormed Brussels. Joseph's successor, Leopold II (1790–2), had no authoritarian ambitions, but, when his offer to recognize the new regime in return for acceptance of his sovereignty was rejected, he resorted to force. In a short campaign, Austrian troops snuffed out the newly independent state in December 1790.

The onset of the FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS in 1792 brought new vicissitudes to the Austrian Netherlands, which became one of the first conquests of the revolutionary armies. Hopes on the part of political exiles that French intervention would promote independent statehood conflicted with the conquerors’ ambitions to establish the Rhine as a natural frontier, and the territories were consequently annexed in spring 1793. The Austrians briefly reasserted control in March, but following the battle of Fleurus (June 26, 1794) they abandoned the Netherlands, which were then incorporated into France on October 1, 1795. This situation was endorsed at the Peace of CAMPO FORMIO (1797) and reaffirmed by the Treaty of LUNÉVILLE (1801). The heavy demands of the French war effort, together with a series of anti-Catholic policies, led to an uprising in October 1798 which was severely repressed. After NAPOLEON I'S first abdication, the PARIS TREATY of May 1814 surprisingly left the Austrian Netherlands under French control. However, the VIENNA CONGRESS eventually transferred the territory to Dutch rule so as to form the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. This union was always unstable. In 1830 conservative Catholics joined with liberal reformers and, inspired by the revolutionary events in France during July of that year (see REVOLUTIONS OF 1830–2), staged their own revolt against Dutch control. Belgium now emerged as an independent state, under Leopold of Saxe-Coburg who in July 1831 was crowned King Leopold I.

Austro-Hungarian Empire (see under HABSBURG EMPIRE; AUSGLEICH)

Austro-Prussian War Also known as the Six (or Seven) Weeks' War, this conflict lasted from early June until mid-July 1866. Not only the speed but the very fact of PRUSSIA'S victory seem easier to rationalize in retrospect than they did to predict at the time. In essence, the principal battle fought at SADOWA (July 3) marked the climax of BISMARCK'S longstanding determination to exclude the HABSBURG EMPIRE from any scheme of GERMAN UNIFICATION. The war's more immediate origins lay in wrangling between Austria and Prussia over the SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN region, which they had seized from Denmark in 1864. While asserting joint formal sovereignty, the two powers had also agreed in 1865 an administrative partition (see GASTEIN, CONVENTION OF). In June 1866 Bismarck made his decisive bid to remove Austrian influence from northern Germany, aiming to gain control over Holstein as well as Schleswig and to disband the GERMAN CONFEDERATION (which the Habsburg regime viewed as the proper arbiter of the sovereignty issue). In so far as this dispute split the German states, the ensuing military confrontation was not only an international conflict between two major powers (further complicated by Italian support for the Prussian side) but a civil war as well. It was one in which Austria enjoyed the greater measure of support from “the third Germany.” Most notably, the monarchs of BAVARIA, HANOVER, SAXONY, and WÜRTTEMBERG joined the anti-Prussian cause in a not unreasonable expectation of Habsburg victory, just as NAPOLEON III was keeping France neutral on the basis of a similar expectation. Though the Austrians did prevail over the Italians at CUSTOZZA on June 24, the Prussian triumph at Sadowa in Bohemia soon proved the decisive one. In victory, Bismarck did not order a march upon Vienna that might have destabilized the wider international order but negotiated a relatively moderate peace instead. By the Treaty of Prague finalized on August 23 he obtained Habsburg assent to Prussian sovereignty over the whole of Schleswig-Holstein, to the dissolution of the confederal arrangements operated under formal Austrian presidency since 1815, and to the creation of a new NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION effectively governed from Berlin. The peace also permitted a number of the previous states, including Hanover, to be directly incorporated into an enlarged Prussia. Within five years all this could be viewed as having been simply a prelude to the establishment of a new GERMAN EMPIRE, embracing the southern states as well. Meanwhile, the exclusion of Austria from Bismarck's version of Germany had prompted from FRANCIS JOSEPH I the AUSGLEICH of 1867, which reorganized his own imperial domains. However, these no longer included Venetia. Though the Italian forces had been defeated in the war, Prussia fulfilled its promise that this Habsburg province should be transferred, via an initial formal cession to France, into the sovereignty of VICTOR EMMANUEL II. Thus the relevant VIENNA TREATY[4] of October 12 confirmed the war's contribution to the process not simply of German state-building but of ITALIAN UNIFICATION too, and thereby signaled the end of substantial Austrian influence over both these spheres.

Axis, Rome–Berlin Treaty of mutual interest signed between Italy and Germany on October 25, 1936. Shortly afterwards, MUSSOLINI spoke of how he and HITLER were creating “an axis” around which the rest of Europe would revolve. The agreement reflected the drift of fascist Italy into the Nazi camp (see FASCISM; NAZISM), something facilitated by the widespread criticism of the ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR the previous year. Japan also became associated with the Axis when it signed the ANTI-COMINTERN PACT of November 1936. On May 22, 1939, the 1936 treaty became a military alliance, the “Pact of Steel.” This involved Rome and Berlin in pledging military support to one another should they be attacked, though the Italians also obtained a verbal guarantee that neither signatory would force war before 1943. In the context of WORLD WAR II, the expression “Axis powers” was commonly used after the Tripartite Treaty between Italy, Germany, and Japan of September 27, 1940, and came to include Hitler's allies and puppet states, most obviously Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Croatia.

Azaña, Manuel (1880–1940), Prime Minister (1931–3, 1936) and President (1936–9) of SPAIN. Born into a prosperous family, he trained as a lawyer before becoming a civil servant and also developing a reputation as a progressive literary figure. In 1924 he founded the Republican party, only to be swiftly imprisoned by the regime of Miguel PRIMO DE RIVERA. When ALFONSO XIII was removed in 1931 Azaña became minister of war in the SECOND REPUBLIC, before obtaining the premiership a few months later. A prominent advocate of democracy and social justice, he was forced to resign in 1933, and in 1934 his support for an autonomous CATALONIA brought him another spell in jail. Having helped to establish the POPULAR FRONT, he became prime minister again in February 1936. As president from May of that year, he faced the challenge of holding together the coalition of forces opposed to FRANCO. In 1938 he attempted to use outside arbitration as a means of ending the SPANISH CIVIL WAR, even while recognizing that by then a Nationalist victory was virtually assured. In February 1939 he fled to France, where he died the following year.