Eastern Question The significance of this term, covering the international ramifications of the decline of the Ottoman Empire from the later eighteenth until the early twentieth century, can be best considered through further reference to Turkey and to its role in European affairs during that period (see turkey and europe; also Map 7).
In essence, the Eastern Question involved two kinds of destabilizing rivalry that interacted with each other. First, there was competition between the various Balkan nationalities (see nationalism) who were seeking greater autonomy, and increasingly independence, as ottoman control over the region weakened. second, there were the tensions that Turkish decline generated as between the Great Powers. In this context both Russia and the habsburg empire remained constantly alert to the possibilities ofpromoting their own territorial expansion. Meanwhile, the British concerned themselves principally with securing their maritime ascendancy (see straits question). By the opening of the twentieth century, the german empire was already bent on supplanting Britain as Turkey’s most crucial source of diplomatic support. For that reason, and also due to intensified Austro-Russian rivalries in the Balkan region, the Eastern Question became one of the principal factors linked to the causation of world war I. In its classic form, the concept then retained some measure of relevance for a little longer, until the rise of atatUrk and the signing of the lausanne treaty in 1923 rendered it redundant.
Eastern Rumelia By the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878) this area was transferred from Turkey (see turkey and europe) to newly-independent Bulgaria. In the following July the Berlin congress revised the arrangement. Eastern Rumelia became an administratively autonomous part of southern Bulgaria, but with provision for the sultan to retain substantial political and military authority over it. in practice the Bulgarians rapidly marginalized such Turkish involvement, and by 1886 had succeeded in getting international recognition for the region’s incorporation into their new principality.
Ebert, Friedrich (1871-1925), President of the WEIMAR republic (1919-25). Upon the german empire’s collapse early in November 1918 this former saddler, who had been chairman of the SOCIAL democratic PARTY OF GERMANY since 1913, immediately became chancellor at the behest of prince Max von Baden. As a moderate, Ebert sought army support in resisting the revolutionary pressures growing at that juncture amongst groups from the more extreme left (see spartacist rising). He was then chosen by the National Assembly to assume the presidency of the new republic in February 1919. Now head of state, he was still powerless to prevent the humiliations loaded upon defeated Germany at the paris peace
The Wiley-Blackwell Dictionary of Modern European History Since 1789 Nicholas Atkin, Michael Biddiss and Frank Tallett
© 2011 Nicholas Atkin, Michael Biddiss, Frank Tallett. ISBN: 978-1-405-18922-4
SETTLEMENT, especially through the Versailles TREATY. Despite his efforts to promote democratic moderation, Weimar’s instabilities were soon such that in 1922 the Assembly abandoned its plans to hold a presidential election by popular vote. Instead, the parliamentary deputies simply prolonged their own previous mandate to Ebert. Thereafter he suffered increasingly from rightwing attacks (e. g. for his allegedly treasonable conduct in regard to munitions strikes during the war years, and for welcoming the failure of the BEER HALL PUTSCH attempted by hitler). After Ebert died in office, a national election produced as his presidential successor the far more conservative figure of HINDENBURG.
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) Within the context of European integration, discussion about creating a single currency began in 1969. However, it was not until the 1989 delors report that the project became a priority. Plans for its staged implementation then featured in the 1992 MAASTRICHT TREATY. Those states of the European Union (EU) wishing to participate agreed that they would aim to meet, by the end of the decade, certain “convergence criteria” for an irrevocable fixing of the exchange rate at which each national currency would be converted into the shared one. The latter, eventually issued by the European Central Bank under the title of the “euro,” became operative in 2002. By 2010,16 of the 27 members of the EU had adopted it as their official currency, and it was also widely used in a further five European countries. However, this was also the epoch at which “convergence” seemed to have given way to renewed “divergence” in certain cases, with that of Greece (severely beset by public debt) providing the most worrying example of such a threat to the continuing coherence of the eurozone.
Eden, Anthony (1897-1977), British Prime Minister (1955-7), primarily remembered for his role in the suez crisis (1956). Born into the aristocracy, he was educated at Eton and oxford, before serving with distinction in the World War i. In 1923, he was elected to parliament as a Conservative. it was as private secretary to Austen Chamberlain (1926-9) that he developed an interest in foreign policy, going on to serve as under-secretary at the Foreign Office (1931-4), minister for League of Nations affairs (1934-5), and foreign secretary (1935-8). Though he did not oppose hitler’s remilitarization of the rhineLAND, he was skeptical of the policy of appeasement and resigned his office in February 1938 when Neville Chamberlain attempted to court italy. Although a convinced anti-appeaser, Eden nevertheless kept a low profile, abstaining from voting on the Munich agreement. At the outbreak of WORLD WAR II, he returned to government as secretary of state for the Dominions and, on Chamberlain’s resignation in May 1940, was considered a possible prime minister. instead, he served under churchill as minister for war (1940) and then as foreign minister (1940-5). In that latter role he was given the thorny task of negotiating with de gaulle, but otherwise found that he was often merely shadowing the war premier. in 1951, he returned to the Foreign office and, though his health was deteriorating, he was still in
1955 the obvious prime-ministerial successor to Churchill. During Eden’s own brief administration, foreign affairs remained his chiefconcern. in
1956 he supported intervention in the Middle East when the Suez Canal was nationalized by Nasser, the Egyptian leader. Viewing the latter as another version of Hitler, Eden resorted to military force, which was supported by Israel and France but condemned by most of the international community, especially the USA. At the height of the crisis, French premier Guy Mollet suggested an anglo-french union similar to that mooted in June 1940. Yet, especially because of pressures from Washington, Eden swiftly recognized that Britain had little choice but to withdraw. The retreat from Suez was a national humiliation, and illustrated how, in the new world order dominated by the USA and USSR, there was little the UK could do without American support. The discredit was felt most keenly by Eden himself, whose health deteriorated yet further, prompting his resignation in January 1957.
Education Derived from Latin educare (“to bring out”), this term may denote any kind of intellectual, moral, or social instruction, but is treated here principally in the contexts of formal schooling and university provision.
Such limited school systems as existed in European countries towards the end of the eighteenth century were generally associated with the churches. Over the next 100 years, the greater diversity that developed in educational arrangements was particularly apparent at the elementary level. Even there, however, certain shared characteristics were discernible. Provision was generally aimed at children of the lower orders (see class; working class) between the ages of 6 and 13, though many pupils would have ceased such education well before their thirteenth birthday, especially since leaving-exams were rare and school attendance was not compulsory. Educational establishments, whether under ecclesiastical or other control, charged fees, though the costs were normally small and sometimes covered by bursaries for the poorest. The curriculum was largely restricted to “the three Rs,” with special emphasis on reading skills (see also literacy). This reflected the clerical origins of “mass education” at the time of the Reformation, when it had been pioneered by the Catholic Church (see Catholicism) to maintain the loyalty of the faithful and inculcate piety through the provision of wholesome literature: by contrast, writing was an unnecessary luxury. Teachers, even those from religious orders, were poorly trained and often incapable of managing the curriculum. As for governments, these were initially little involved in the provision and oversight of elementary education, preferring to leave this to private or ecclesiastical initiative. By the 1840s the best-provided areas of Europe (Scandinavia, Scotland, the Netherlands, switzerland, and the German states) still gave such schooling only to some 10 percent ofchildren. Even there, as well as yet more obviously as one moved southwards and eastwards across the map, any prospect of broad obligatory attendance remained frustrated by the fact that so many working-class parents depended upon the contribution made to the family economy by the wages of their children. Thus, even where teaching was available, they resisted sending them to school, especially in the summer when their children’s labor was required in the fields. Moreover, still smaller numbers - and these mainly boys - went on to secondary level.
Elite opinion was divided about the merits of education for the laboring classes. Some commentators believed that it would simply arouse unsustainable expectations. However, more optimistic reformers founded organizations to promote the cause. in Britain, the Anglican-inspired National Society for the Education of the Poor (1811) provided one example, while another was Lord Brougham’s creation of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1827) with the aim of making self-help “improvement literature” similarly available to the most disadvantaged. Taking a middle course, Thomas Malthus had argued that only education would reconcile the impoverished to their inevitable hardships. Amid such debate both in Britain and in Europe at large, what might be termed state systems of elementary education grew quite slowly during the nineteenth century. Their emergence reflected a number of overlapping concerns.
Following GERMAN UNIFICATION and ITALIAN UNIFICATION, the new national governments in these countries proved keen to use schooling to promote a sense of patriotic self-awareness and cohesion. In the first case, educational control was one of the points at issue in the anti-Catholic KULTURKAMPF of the 1870s and 1880s. In the second, poor levels of literacy (as well as property qualifications) had prevented much of the southern Italian population from voting in the 1860 plebiscite that led to the proclamation of a unified state the following year. Though governmental approval was given for at least a limited amount of elementary schooling throughout Italy in 1877, severe unevenness ofeffective provision remained one of the great divides between north and south for decades to come. In France the third republic’s desire to create patriotic and obedient citizens following the country’s defeat in the franco-PRUSSIAN WAR underpinned the ferry laws of 1882. These made elementary education free and compulsory up to the age of 13 and required departements to establish teacher-training establishments. The need for a better-schooled workforce ifa country was to remain at the forefront of manufacture was also a significant consideration in the context of industrialization. As rates of German economic growth rose, politicians both in France and Britain became fretful about educational inadequacies. In the latter case, direct state provision of elementary schooling was one of the reforming measures initiated under the Gladstone ministries, beginning with the Education Act of 1870. A decade later attendance was made compulsory until the age of 10, and in 1891 most fees were removed. Balfour’s Act of 1902 gave responsibility for the instruction of 5.6 million children to a central Board of Education, and truancy officers were instituted on the eve of WORLD WAR I to reinforce obligatory attendance. In Russia, where two-thirds of the population comprised largely illiterate serfs (see serfdom), the Crimean War of the 1850s had revealed the inadequacies of the state. ALEXANDER II responded by initiating educational reforms that produced modest improvements from a low base, though their effect was blunted by the actions of his reactionary successor, ALEXANDER III.
In a number of countries one effect of the extension of elementary education was to increase the proportion of the population speaking the language of the dominant elite. For example, “Italian” in the form of Tuscan/Roman began slowly to spread, and more Bretons and Gascons used French than ever before, while the teaching of Magyar to other ethnic groupings became a central feature of Hungarian policy for all primary schools. In Catholic parts of Europe, deeper state involvement also undermined the extensive ecclesiastical commitment to educational provision. Although the governments in France and the Habsburg Empire had certainly hastened to reassert the church’s control of education after the revolutions of 1848-9, the long-term trend went in the opposite direction. This was especially true of countries where anticlericalism was prominent, but it applied also in the more staunchly Catholic instances of spain and Portugal where education tended at times to promote a supposedly progressive “secular” emphasis (see secularization) as opposed to an allegedly reactionary one focused on personal piety.
By contrast with their tardy involvement in elementary education, governments had engaged at a much earlier stage with some provision for secondary education. The intention was to produce a cadre of persons capable of serving the state as bureaucrats, public functionaries, and military officers. Here France led the way. Building on initiatives first projected during the french REVOLUTION OF 1789 and the directory, napoleon i introduced educational reforms, though the system he envisaged was never brought fully into effect. Even if elementary education - and especially schooling for girls, which remained focused upon producing dutiful wives and mothers (see also gender; feminism) - was neglected by the
French state and left to the religious orders, the country’s secondary provision was probably the best in Europe by 1815. Subsequently, however, the lycees established by Napoleon would be overtaken by the Prussian Gymnasien, forms of grammar school offering a more varied curriculum including some elements of religious instruction. Across Europe at large further expansion of state-sponsored education for secondary pupils followed during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in tandem with the growth of elementary schooling and for broadly similar reasons. Over the period from 1875 to 1912 there was a threefold increase in the number of such students in Germany and a fourfold one in France. In Britain, school fees were initially waived and then abolished altogether in 1910, and the 1918 Education Act made the state responsible for secondary education for the first time. In Russia, entry to secondary school was guaranteed to all who passed qualifying examinations after 1864, some aspects of the censorship laws were revoked to allow access to hitherto unavailable books, and travel restrictions on students were lifted.
Yet, even if secondary provision (particularly with more frequent emphasis on new technical skills) was enhanced in all European states, the absolute number of beneficiaries remained limited, with a predominance of students who were male and drawn from the ranks of the better-off. Although access to higher education was generally even more restricted, the German states offered wider opportunities than most. The new University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by Humboldt, was notable for differentiating itself from medieval foundations by its stress upon science, and served in some respects as a model for later developments at tertiary level (including the emergence of broadly “polytechnic” education) across much of Europe. Meanwhile, the student radicalism increasingly evident in the German states during the epoch of metternich became a source of disquiet to the authorities (see also burschenschaften; carlsbad decrees) and made a significant contribution to the revolutions of 1848-9. Even as the numbers registered at European universities steadily increased over the period down to 1914, such an education remained chiefly an elitist preserve - one whose most notable exclusions affected, yet again,
Virtually all women as well as males from working-class backgrounds.
In the course of the twentieth century there was throughout Europe a broadening in the availability of educational opportunities at every level, particularly as governments continued to encourage more directly utilitarian curricula in response to increasingly complex economic, scientific, and technological needs. Although provision became opened to all, it remained the case that there were very variable levels of attainment, and inequalities of effective opportunity that continued to reflect differences of gender, class, and culture. Meanwhile, education had undoubtedly become a central feature within the development of mass SOCIETY and mass politics. Even in broadly nonauthoritarian situations, the governments that now supplied most of the relevant funding tended to exploit the potential which almost universal schooling, in particular, offered to them when addressing matters of social control. However, this attitude was more evident still wherever education became converted into relentless indoctrination, as the tool ofdictatorial propaganda whether spread from the right in countries whose regimes adopted any of the varieties of fascism or from the left in those parts of Europe that experienced communist rule (see communism). During the latter half of the century the contentious nature of governmental control, especially over tertiary education, became most clearly highlighted in two contexts and phases. First, in much of western Europe (and the USA) there occurred the STUDENT REVOLTS OF 1968 and the period immediately following. Then, during the 1980s, further currents of disaffection developed, albeit more slowly, within the universities of eastern Europe, thus contributing to the processes that culminated in the revolutions of 1989-91.
Even beyond the turn ofthe millennium, many long-held assumptions about the purposes of education have continued to come under critical scrutiny. One ongoing trend has been the increasing marginalization of knowledge pursued “for its own sake,” as distinct from more instrumentalist approaches. Among the latter, the beliefthat a key objective must be to mould acceptance of prevailing norms has remained a matter of debate; but so too has the more radical counter-conviction that learning should be essentially harnessed to the pursuit of social change.
Eichmann, Adolf (1906-62), leading Nazi administrator (see NAZISM) who made a major contribution towards implementation of the so-called FINAL SOLUTION. Eichmann was a Rhinelander who joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi movement in 1932. Under the Third Reich he returned to Germany and became one of Reinhard Heydrich’s assistants in the sicherheitsdienst (SD). By 1935 he was head of the office for Jewish emigration (see jews; antisemitism), and in 1938-9 arranged expulsions from Austria and Bohemia. He played a pivotal role in organizing the wannsee conference, and thereafter in providing bureaucratic underpinning to the genocidal policies pursued by HITLER and himmler. Although the Americans captured him at the end of world war ii, his importance was as yet not fully understood. Helped by a Vatican passport, he soon escaped to South America. In 1960 Israeli agents seized Eichmann in Argentina. At his Jerusalem trial in 1961, he was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people, and was executed early the following year. These proceedings prompted Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), with its controversial meditations on “the banality of evil.”
Eire (see under Ireland)
Emancipation of the serfs (see under serfdom)
Emigration (see under migration)
Ems Telegram The dispatch of July 13, 1870, whose edited version, prepared by bismarck, triggered the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. When on July 4, 1870 Paris learned that Leopold von Hohenzol-lern (see also hohenzollern dynasty) was a candidate for the Spanish throne, napoleon iii objected on the grounds that he regarded Spain as part of the French orbit. In an atmosphere of mutual mistrust, both France and Prussia mobilized their forces, which persuaded King william i to withdraw his support for the candidature. This was not enough for the French, who wanted reassurances that the Hohenzollern monarch would not revive the issue. So it was that the French ambassador Benedetti approached William on July 13 at Ems. Here, the king agreed to Leopold’s withdrawal, but would give no guarantees as to the future. On learning what had happened, Bismarck used the episode to his advantage. Since the creation of the north german CONFEDERATION in 1867, he had believed that only war with France would consolidate his vision of GERMAN UNIFICATION by bringing the southern states onto his side. He thus released a tendentiously edited version of the meeting, the so-called Ems dispatch, which found its way into the Berlin press on July 14. In this version of events, it seemed that both parties had insulted one another. Bismarck had thus presented the French with a pretext for war, which was duly declared on July 19.
Enabling Act Law for “removing the distress of People and Reich” passed by the German Reichstag on March 23, 1933, nearly two months into hitler’s chancellorship and less than three weeks after his Nazi Party (see Nazism) had failed to obtain an absolute majority in parliamentary elections. With stormtroopers (see sturmabtei-lung) threatening the assembly, he bullied through the legislation by 444 votes to 94. Only the Social Democrats were left to oppose this grant to Hitler’s government of the power to operate for four years without consulting parliament and to revise the constitution of the weimar REPUBLIC. The Act greatly assisted the implementation of GLEICHSCHALTUNG, and gave a specious legal gloss to the establishment of unfettered Nazi dictatorship. Its renewals in 1937,1939, and 1943 were a mere formality.
Engels, Friedrich (1820-95), German social thinker, most notable as the closest friend and collaborator of MARX. Born into a family of Rhineland factory owners who had partners in Manchester, Engels came to Lancashire in 1842. Shortly after meeting Marx in Paris he published The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), a scathing indictment of the laborers’ plight under the system of industrial capitalism. Together they joined the Communist League in 1847, and early the following year coauthored its celebrated Manifesto (see communism). The eventual failure in Germany and elsewhere of the revolutions of 1848-9 led them both to flee the continent. During the 1850s and 1860s Engels was residing back in Manchester, enjoying the lifestyle appropriate to a prosperous capitalist employer even while also helping to finance the survival of Marx and his family in London. After his own retirement from industry, Engels too moved to London and devoted himself to assisting his friend with the preparation of Capital, though he did manage to publish the Anti-Duhring under his own name in 1878. Following Marx’s death in 1883, Engels effectively continued the collaboration by tidying and systematizing his colleague’s intellectual legacy. The result was some loss of subtlety, as the canon of orthodox Marxism now came to be characterized, even more markedly than before, by materialistic determinism and uncritical
POSITIVISM.
ENIGMA (see under ultra)
Enlightenment Although this intellectual movement registered most of its major achievements even before the french revolution of 1789, it is noteworthy also for its subsequent influence. That said, the Enlightenment’s organizational or doctrinal coherence should not be exaggerated. Its philosophes came from the aristocracy as well as the educated bourgeoisie, and participated in a phenomenon which, though truly European in scope, exhibited significant variations shaped by local circumstance. For example, the religious skepticism promoted by figures such as voltaire in its French heartland during the eighteenth century stands in contrast to both the Catholic and Protestant brands of Enlightenment more evident in the German states. The depiction of the enlightened as a tight phalanx of plotters, aiming to impose standardized dogma, was largely the product of their opponents’ anxious imaginations. What did draw the movement together was a shared attitude of mind generating broad consensus about the problems facing ancien REGIME Europe and the strategies needed to address them. This reflected the conviction that effective action was dependent on the application of critical thinking, firmly founded on reason. As Immanuel Kant put it in 1784, only by the courageous application of that faculty could the process of Enlightenment fulfill its goal of securing “the emergence of mankind from self-imposed immaturity.” Though this meant a systematic questioning of traditional authority, the thrust was far from solely negative. Works such as the celebrated Encyclop'edie (1751-80) compiled by Denis Diderot aimed not merely to catalogue the abuses that frustrated freedom and felicity alike but also to promote the practicability and pace of remedial social change. Eventually, around 1789, the ideas of the Enlightenment (especially as popularized through the cheap literature of the libelles) helped to unleash in France an even more sudden and violent upheaval than most of the philosophes had bargained for. Yet, just as surely, the movement assisted in a wider transformation, involving an erosion of the persuasive power of mere tradition and an encouragement of experimental innovation that would have lasting effects on Europe at large. The Enlightenment’s legacies included encouragement of early-nineteenth-century liberalism as well as positivism; conversely, it also helped to provoke ROMANTICISM precisely as a counter-current to the arguably exaggerated reliance of the philosophes upon rationalism.
Enosis Greek word for “union.” Its primary point of modern historical reference has been CYPRUS. Particularly from the 1930s onward, the Greek Cypriot majority opposed to British rule used enosis as the rallying-cry for integration with GREECE - a campaign that by the 1950s was running into violent channels. The compromise of 1959-60, establishing an independent Cyprus under Archbishop makarios iii, was challenged in 1974 by the Athens regime of the Greek colonels. Their annexation plans were frustrated by a preemptive invasion from turkey, which, claiming to protect the ethnic minority, then occupied the northern area. Thus enosis now came to mean primarily the Greek Cypriots’ quest to reunify the divided island.
Entente Cordiale A set of “agreements” between France and Britain signed on April 8, 1904 that resolved their longstanding colonial disputes. it comprised three documents. one involved the French relinquishing fishing rights around Newfoundland, and obtaining in return the upper Gambian town of Yarbutenda; it further settled border issues in central and western Africa. Another ruled on disputes in siam, Madagascar, and the New Hebrides. The most far-reaching document concerned North Africa, where Britain obtained a free hand in Egypt by agreeing not to obstruct French designs on Morocco. Though not a formal alliance, the Entente Cordiale was significant for ending a century of intermittent hostilities between the two countries - the so-called “second Hundred Years War” - and for signaling that Germany was now perceived as a common threat. Berlin attempted to test the strength of this new understanding by provoking in 1905 the first of the moroccan crises, which was resolved peacefully at the Algeciras conference a year later. In 1907 Britain completed a similar informal agreement with Russia, already allied with France (see franco-russian alliance), so creating the TRIPLE ENTENTE that would confront the CENTRAL POWERS in WORLD WAR I.
Environmentalism Disparate political and social movement which seeks to emphasize that humankind’s capacities for destructive domination of the natural world have increasingly outstripped our sense of responsibility towards it. Although the term was invented in the 1930s, the ideological roots of environmentalism go back at least as far as the eighteenth-century movements of ENLIGHTENMENT and ROMANTICISM. Promoters of the latter were particularly emphatic about the negative features of early industrialization, associated with forest clearances, land reclamation, air pollution, the burning of fossil fuels, the desecration of the landscape, and rapid growth in population and URBANIZATION alike. Though the impact of these changes was uneven, nineteenth-century governments generally lacked both the will and the capacity to respond. Thus environmental issues tended to be appropriated either by individuals or by fringe groupings based on such organizations as health clubs, ramblers’ associations, and vegetarian societies. The Catholic Church also expressed concern through a series of papal encyclicals. However, it would be too much to speak of an environmental movement as already existing by the 1890s. During much of the ensuing century the politics of ecology tended to be more a concern for the right than the left, particularly since the latter was often in thrall to what was viewed as the modernizing progress of the SOVIET UNION. In the 1930s, for example, it was NAZISM that ostentatiously championed “green” issues. Yet its concerns turned out to be only superficial, especially as hitler prepared for a war of cataclysmic proportions. Ambivalence also marked the right-wing authoritarian regimes of FRANCO and salazar. While they celebrated the values of rural society, their search for tourist revenue prompted collusion in the over-development of the Costas and the Algarve.
It was in the 1960s that environmentalism became a more potent political force. Its appeal, already evident in the student revolts of 1968, was further heightened by the oil crises of the 1970s, by the proliferation of nuclear power, and by disenchantment with the traditional parties of the left. 1970 saw the founding of the Friends of the Earth which initially favored direct action in its attempts to halt the French government’s nuclear program. The following year Greenpeace was born. Throughout western Europe, conservation groups, civil rights activists, wildlife societies, and movements for sexual liberation flourished, embracing such issues as natural energy, organic farming, and communal living. Many individuals too were also now making more conspicuous efforts to live out an alternative life-style. Politically, environmentalism came to be championed most forcibly by the Green parties, the first of which appeared in West Germany in 1973. Though similar organizations soon emerged elsewhere, this was not the case in Soviet-dominated eastern Europe. There protest was stymied, and the focus remained on maximizing production. This resulted unavoidably in the flouting of safety rules, breach of which became tragically evident in the nuclear chernobyl DISASTER of 1986. Where Green parties did develop in Europe, they embraced direct democracy and proved deeply mistrustful of capitalism. Recruiting most effectively among the young and well-educated, they enjoyed mixed fortunes, partly because they were perceived to be “single issue” groupings. As such, they were least successful in Scandinavia largely because, there at any rate, ecological issues were already being incorporated into the programs of the mainstream parties. They also had a limited impact in Britain where the first-past-the-post electoral system worked against them, though the placing of US missiles on British soil in the 1980s rejuvenated the campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. in the French case, the Greens were from 1979 onward conspicuous players in national and local politics, and in 1997 the ecological champion Dominique Voynet was appointed minister of the environment. Greens did best in the Federal Republic of Germany, thanks partly to the use of proportional representation and, at least until the end of the 1980s, due also to the country’s particular vulnerability amid the tensions of the cold war. Since the collapse of communism, Green parties have continued to experience varied electoral fortunes. However, environmentalism as broadly defined has been successful in promoting among Europeans (as well as many others) a heightened and more urgent awareness of global warming and other ecological concerns. These have become the focus for a series of international gatherings, such as the United Nations conference on climate change held at copenhagen in late 2009. Its disappointing outcome underlined that, even then, it was still easier to generate talk than action.
Erfurt Union An abortive attempt by Prussia to create and dominate a new organization of German states in the immediate aftermath of the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848-9. Following the dissolution of the FRANKFURT PARLIAMENT and his refusal to accept the crown of a “little” Germany from a popular assembly, Frederick william iv of Prussia, guided by his chief minister General von Radowitz, eyed favorably a different opportunity to develop some federal version of german UNIFICATION under Hohenzollern leadership. This involved the so-called “policy of fusion,” initiated by the Alliance of Three Kings (May 26, 1849), concluded between Prussia, saxony, and HANOVER. The latter two agreed to membership on the understanding that all other German states, apart from Austria (see habsburg empire), would eventually join. From this evolved the concept of the Erfurt Union, which was to have its own parliament, and which would coexist with Austria in some form of loose confederation. However, elections conducted in January 1850 excited little popular support. The Erfurt Union faced a far more serious challenge in the shape of Austria itself which had regained its confidence after the crushing of revolution in Italy and Germany. francis Joseph i, the new Habsburg emperor, was determined to counter Prussian aspirations towards leadership of Germany. By the end of 1850 his strategy had led to the collapse of the Erfurt Union, and to the olmUtz agreement which restored the former GERMAN CONFEDERATION and Austrian presidency thereof.
Erhard, Ludwig (1897-1977), Chancellor of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (1963-6). Having assisted the British and Americans with advice on reconstruction in their post-1945 zones of occupation, this economist entered the FRG’s new parliament in 1949 as an advocate of chrisTIAN DEMOCRACY. ADENAUER promptly appointed him to be minister of economics, and Erhard continued in that post until 1963. During this long span the latter enjoyed considerable freedom of action in implementing his vision of a “social market economy,” aimed at strong welfare provision (see welfarism) within a framework of capitalism. Erhard also rightly took much of the credit for the “economic miracle” that accompanied the FRG’s recovery from the disastrous material consequences of WORLD WAR II, and thus also for the democratic stabilization that such prosperity served to underpin. Even so, he was less adept at political maneuvering than at economic strategy, and that weakness was directly exposed once he succeeded Adenauer in the chancellorship. Erhard’s wrangling with the Liberals (the minority element in his two-party administration), especially over Christian Democratic proposals for higher taxes, brought an unexpectedly early end to his leadership. He was replaced by his party colleague kiesinger, whose reconfigured “grand coalition” then gave the left its first direct share of governmental involvement in the FRG.
Erlander, Tage (1901-85), Prime Minister of SWEDEN (1946-68). This Social Democrat dominated his country’s politics for more than twenty years. He used such measures as steeply progressive taxation to consolidate sweden’s wider European reputation as a prosperous model for welfarism. Erlander’sbeliefindemocraticsociALiSMastheideal middle way between capitalism and communism was all of a piece with his determination to maintain Swedish neutrality even amidst the international strains ofthecoLD war. (See also scandinavia)
Estado Novo The name (literally “new state”) given to the dictatorial one-party regime established by SALAZAR on becoming prime minister of PORTUGAL in 1932, six years after its first republic had been toppled by a military coup. inspired by traditional catholic values and operating under the slogan “God, country, and family,” the Estado Novo was more a form of integral conservatism than FASCISM. However, it borrowed quite heavily from MUSSOLINI and resorted to police terror tactics (see terrorism) to root out opposition. Regarding social policy, the Estado Novo gave the teachings of Catholicism an elevated place, especially within education. in the economic domain it promoted a corporate state, where capital was favored over labor. After World War ii, the Estado Novo increasingly obstructed DECOLONIZATION. Closely associated with Salazar himself, dictatorship in Portugal would survive for only a few years after illness forced his retirement in 1968, before giving way to the reestablishment of liberal democracy in 1975-6.
Estates General Representative assembly which, having last met in 1614, was revived at the start of the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. It had been initially summoned for 1792, but the worsening financial crisis obliged louis xvi to bring matters forward to May 1789. Elections to the assembly had been accompanied by the drafting of lists of grievances (cahiers de doleances) and when the deputies assembled in the three traditional orders - clergy, nobility, and third estate - at the palace of versailles, there were high hopes that France was embarking on major reform. However, optimism quickly soured as the government gave no reformist lead and the assembly became deadlocked over voting procedures - by head or by order. Increasingly frustrated, the Third Estate ended the stalemate by voting on June 17 to call itself the National Assembly, thus signaling that it saw its authority deriving from the people, rather than the king. This challenge to royal sovereignty was reinforced three days later by the tennis court OATH, when the deputies vowed not to disperse until they had given France a new constitution. On June 27 Louis capitulated, after the deputies defied his order for the three Estates to meet separately. On July 9 the gathering changed its title for the last time, to the National constituent ASSEMBLY, thus confirming its intention to prioritize the provision of a new constitution.
Estonia (see under Baltic states)
Ethiopian War (see italo-ethiopian war)
Ethnic cleansing The removal of an ethnic, religious, or other cultural grouping in order to leave a particular territory more homogeneously and “purely” occupied by some other population. Thus the term may not only describe policies of enforced migration but also act as a euphemism for programs of killing, even to the point of becoming synonymous with systematic genocide. The phrase has become generally current since the 1990s, when it was first widely used in the context of the civil war that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia, for example with reference to the Srebrenica MASSACRE of 1995 perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs against MUSLiMS. it is now commonly employed to refer to many earlier instances, such as the expulsion of Turkish settlers from Balkan territories “liberated” from Ottoman rule during the nineteenth century, or the Armenian genocide, or the BOLSHEVIKS’ deportation of Don Cossacks during the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, or the enforced flight ofpieds noirs to FranceamidsttheALGERiANWARofthe1950s and early 1960s. Nothing looms larger, however, in modern European history than the utterly murderous forms of “ethnic cleansing” central to the theory as well as practice of Nazism. (See also racism)
Eupen-Moimedy These contested cantons on the German-Belgian border belonged in the eighteenth century to the Austrian Netherlands. The region was then appropriated by the French revolutionary armies in 1796 and governed directly as part of France. In 1815, at the Vienna congress, Eupen-Malmedy was handed over to Prussia. Thereafter it was steadily Germanized, especially at the time of the kulturkampf when the use of the French language was proscribed. The Versailles TREATY of 1919 transferred the region to Belgium, partly as compensation for the economic damage that it sustained during world war i. In 1940 hitler incorporated Eupen-Malmedy into the Third Reich, a move that was applauded by a majority of inhabitants who had always considered themselves German. in 1945, the lands were restored to Belgium, which carried out a large-scale purge of those accused of collaboration with the Nazis. Since then, the German community has always proclaimed its distinct identity, even though Brussels has made a number of concessions, especially regarding protection of the German language.
Eurotom Common name for the European Atomic Energy Community, which was established alongside the European Economic Community (EEC) by the rome treaties of 1957 (see EUROPEAN integration). Originally comprising “the six,” it had as its purpose the promotion of nuclear technology as a source of alternative energy supply to oil and coal. In 1967, while continuing to possess a separate legal existence, it became part of the European Community (EC) which brought together the EEC and the European COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY. More recently, Eur-atom’s membership has continued to grow in step with enlargement of the European Union, and it remains committed to the development ofnucle-ar power for peaceful purposes.
Eurocommunism Denotes the inclination shown by some Western Marxists during the later stages of the cold war to emphasize how their version of communism differed from the authoritarian model dominant in the Eastern bloc. Their position had been foreshadowed by gramsci, and was most notably expressed in the Eurocommunist Manifesto of November 1975. This was initially sponsored by the Communist parties in Italy (see berlinguer) and France, and soon by the Spanish movement too. Eurocommunism involved a pragmatic acceptance of multi-party politics within democratic parliamentary systems, and a willingness to use the advance of European INTEGRATION as a means of improving working conditions. In the late 1970s the soviet union dismissed it, predictably, as a capitulation to anti-revolutionary revisionism. A decade later, towards the end of the gorbachev era, both that regime and Eurocommunism itself looked increasingly irrelevant to progressive left-wing politics.
Europe des patries (see under European integration; DE GAULLe)
World History
