Eric Hobsbawm - Age Of Revolution 1789 -1848

THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONhaving a long record of diplomatic and economic influence in theLevant, which it periodically attempted to restore and extend. In particular,since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, French influence waspowerful in that country, whose Pasha, Mohammed AIi, a virtuallyindependent ruler, could more or less disrupt or hold together theTurkish Empire at will. Indeed, the crises of the Eastern Question inthe 1830s (1831-3 and 1839-41) were essentially crises in MohammedAli's relations with his nominal sovereign, complicated in the lattercase by French support for Egypt. However, if Russia was unwilling tomake war over Constantinople, France neither could nor wanted to. Therewere diplomatic crises. But in the end, apart from the Crimean episode,there was no war over Turkey at any time in the nineteenth century.It is thus clear from the course of international disputes in this periodthat the inflammable material in international relations was simply notexplosive enough to set off a major war. Of the great powers theAustrians and the Prussians were too weak to count for much. TheBritish were satisfied. They had by 1815 gained the most completevictory of any power in the entire history of the world, having emergedfrom the twenty years of war against France as the only industrializedeconomy, the only naval power—the British navy in 1840 had almostas many ships as all other navies put together—and virtually the onlycolonial power in the world. Nothing appeared to stand in the way ofthe only major expansionist interest of British foreign policy, theexpansion of British trade and investment. Russia, while not as satiated,had only limited territorial ambitions, and nothing which could forlong—or so it appeared—stand in the way of her advance. At leastnothing which justified a socially dangerous general war. France alonewas a 'dissatisfied' power, and had the capacity to disrupt the stableinternational order. But France could do so only under one condition:that she once again mobilized the revolutionary energies of Jacobinismat home and of liberalism and nationalism abroad. For in terms oforthodox great-power rivalry she had been fatally weakened. She wouldnever again be able, as under Louis XIV or the Revolution, to fight acoalition of two or more great powers on equal terms, relying merelyon her domestic population and resources. In 1780 there were 2-5Frenchmen to every Englishman, but in 1830 less than three to everytwo. In 1780 there had been almost as many Frenchmen as Russians,but in 1830 there were almost half as many Russians again as French.And the pace of French economic evolution lagged fatally behind theBritish, the American, and very soon the German.But Jacobinism was too high a price for any French government topay for its international ambitions. In 1830 and again in 1848 when106