The
European Civil War is a period that includes both
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
,
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the inter-war period referring to the many major European regime changes. It is used in referring to the repeated confrontations that occurred during the early 20th Century. There is no firm consensus over the details and links, such as the level of international involvement in the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
and, occasionally, the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
. The term is often used to explain the rapid decline of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
's global
hegemonyHegemony is the preponderance of power, and the construction of consent from the powerless through cultural values.-In politics:...
and the emergence of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
.
The
European Civil War is a period that includes both
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
,
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the inter-war period referring to the many major European regime changes. It is used in referring to the repeated confrontations that occurred during the early 20th Century. There is no firm consensus over the details and links, such as the level of international involvement in the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
and, occasionally, the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
. The term is often used to explain the rapid decline of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
's global
hegemonyHegemony is the preponderance of power, and the construction of consent from the powerless through cultural values.-In politics:...
and the emergence of the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
. Dr. Franz-Willing argues that during this period: "By this self-mutilation, Europe lost its position in the world, its hegemony, and caused itself to be divided into two spheres of influence: one American, and one Russian".
"European Civil War" as an academic theory is a minority interest with a growing prominence. The extend of the period is the most conflicting argument. K. M. Panikkar’s original range from 1914 to 1945 is the mostly agreed upon. The events between 1936 to 1945 which began with the conflict in Spain and ended with the European portion of World War II are commonly cited. Spencer M. Di Scala of the
University of MassachusettsThe University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts....
, Boston accepts 1945 as the end date but begins the conflict in 1917, with the Russian Civil War. However, for the self-mutilation perspective there is a tendency to stretch the beginning as early as the
Franco-Prussian WarThe Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between France and Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria...
on July 19, 1870 and end as late as the
reunification of GermanyGerman reunification is the process in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and Berlin was united into a single city-state. The start of this process is commonly referred to by former citizens of the GDR as die Wende...
. The London School of Economics course “European Civil War: 1890 to 1990” agree that 1945 was the end date but the second half of the 20th century was the result of the conflagration’s aftermath. The University of Hong Kong's Department of History divides the content in two sections; one covering 1914-45 and the second 1945 onwards.
The supporting case
Those supporting the idea of a European Civil War contend that the heads of state in many European nations were so closely related as to constitute branches of the same family. European culture is also relatively homogeneous, with most nations tracing the roots of their culture to two principal sources; the
Judeo-ChristianJudeo–Christian is a term used in the United States, broadly to describe a body of concepts and values thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity...
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
and
Classical antiquityClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. Their respective legal systems, while separate, were remarkably similar and evolved to become more so over time. A single culture and a single ruling elite could therefore lead to the assumption that Europe was evolving (albeit slowly) towards becoming a single state.
At the end of the conflict, elites in the different countries of Europe began work to create a centralized "state" that has since grown into the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
. The emergence of the EU from World War II is central to the argument, as a
civil warA civil war is a war between organized groups within a single nation state, or, less commonly, between two nations created from a formerly-united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the nation or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies...
typically occurs when competing parties within the same country or
empireThe term empire derives from the Latin imperium. Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy...
struggle for national control of state power. Civil wars usually result in the emergence of a new or restrengthened central authority.
Such academics are supported by the current trend to regard the First and Second World Wars as part of the same conflict with a 22-year cease-fire (in much the same way as the 1337–1453
Hundred Years' WarThe Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known...
and the
Napoleonic WarsThe Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts declared against Napoleon's French Empire and changing sets of European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played...
are treated as single entities by most historians). If one regards the two World Wars as being a single conflagration, including the Spanish and Russian civil wars as intermediate conflicts, tracing the routes of World War I back to the earlier Franco-Prussian conflict and linking all of them becomes an easy step to make. From there, political changes in Italy, Portugal and elsewhere may be examined within a single context.
The central proponents of the European Civil War were originally based at the history department of the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science, commonly referred to as the London School of Economics or LSE, is a specialist constituent college of the University of London in London, England....
.
Paul PrestonPaul Preston is a British historian and Hispanist, specialized in Spanish history, in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 30 years...
– in his 1996 work
The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain 1936–1939 – describes the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
as an "episode in a greater European Civil War that ended in 1945." The department even included the subject as a course in its own right (taught by Dr.
Robert BoyceRobert William Dewar Boyce was a Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science...
). However, their position has since gained ground with academics elsewhere.
Others who have used the notion of a European Civil War in their work include Franco Ferrarotti – Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the
University of RomeSapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza - Università di Roma, commonly known as Università di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the oldest of Rome's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was...
, Anthony Adamthwaite – Professor at UC Berkeley, and Duke University's J. M. Roberts. In his 1996 work
A History of Europe, Roberts stated that the "European Civil War ended the dominance of Europe in the world" - a typical claim of the idea's proponents.
An early reference to this concept occurs during the 1970s television series
The World at WarThe World at War is a 26-episode television documentaryseries on World War II and the events leading up to and immediately following it. It was produced by Jeremy Isaacs, narrated by Laurence Olivier and its score composed by Carl Davis. A book, The World at War, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster...
, when historian
Stephen AmbroseStephen Edward Ambrose, Ph.D. was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans.-Biography:...
comments that 1945 witnessed an invasion of an exhausted Europe by
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and American armies, "thus ensuring that no European nation actually wins the European Civil War". Earlier still were comments by Indian diplomat
K. M. PanikkarKavalam Madhava Panikkar was an Indian scholar, journalist, historian, administrator and diplomat. He was born to Puthillathu Parameswaran Namboodiri and Chalayil Kunjikutti Kunjamma....
in his 1955 book "Asia and Western Dominance 1498-1945".
Patrick J. Buchanan will go on to argue that this European Civil War has led to decline of the West and its world hegemony. His book, "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World", covers this topic extensively, and will connect much of his prophesies in his book, "
The Death of the WestThe Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Culture and Civilization is a 2001 book by paleoconservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.-Description of Book:...
". Buchanan sees the world wars as unnecessary conflicts mostly due to British foreign policy mistakes that led not only to the destruction of their own empire but also Western dominance, ideals, culture, and populations.
The opposing case
Civil wars typically occur between groups within a state. It is rare for them to occur across national boundaries, though this can happen when ethnic groups are split across national borders in
irredentiasIrredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...
or when nations split into separate components who then enter into a war with one another, which is arguably what happened in the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
.
In either case, opponents argue that Europe of the 1890s to 1940s cannot be regarded as a nation or a single state in formation. Each nation had individual governments, separate bodies of law and individual empires. Each was a clearly defined nation in its own right. Therefore all wars were international rather than internal.
Under this scheme, the emergence of a single European state (in the form of the EU) is born from a desire to prevent future wars rather than as a consequence of the victorious side in any European Civil War exerting its influence over the others.