European Civil War

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The "European Civil War" is a debated period in history between the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War on July 19, 1870 and end of the European portion of World War II on May 8, 1945. The concept is a minority interest within academics but growing in prominence as Europe progressively integrates into a single nation state.

The proposed period would include many (but not all) of the major European regime changes to occur during the period. Those who support the position point to the level of international involvement in the Spanish Civil War and, occasionally, the Russian Civil War to back their claims.

[edit] The case for a "European Civil War"

Those supporting the concept 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 homogenous, with most nations tracing the roots of their culture to two principal sources, the Judeo-Christian Bible and Classical antiquity. A single culture and a single ruling elite would 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 Union. The emergence of the EU from World War II is central to the argument, as a civil war typically occurs when competing parties within the same country or empire 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 World War I and World War II part of the same conflict with a 22-year cease-fire (in much the same way as the 1337–1453 Hundred Years' War is treated as a single entity by most historians). If one regards the two World Wars as being a single conflagration, tracing them back to the earlier Franco-Prussian conflict and linking all three becomes an easy step to make.

The central proponents of the European Civil War concept are based at the history department of the London School of Economics. Paul Preston in his 1996 work The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain 1936–1939 describes the Spanish Civil War as an "episode in a greater European Civil War that ended in 1945." The department there has gone so far as to include the subject as a course in its own right (taught by Dr. Robert Boyce) [1].

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 Rome and Spencer M. Di Scala of the University of Massachusetts, Boston — though he used a narrower date range from 1917 onward. Duke University's J. M. Roberts in his 1996 work A History of Europe goes even further, saying the "European Civil War ended the dominance of Europe in the world."

An early reference to this concept occurs during the 1970s The World at War (TV Series), when historian Stephen Ambrose comments that 1945 witnessed an invasion of an exhausted Europe by Russian and American armies, "thus ensuring that no European nation actually wins the European Civil War".

[edit] Arguments against the "European Civil War"

Civil wars typically occur between elites 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 irredentias or when nations split into separate components who then choose to war with one another, as arguably happened in the American Civil War.

In either case, opponents argue that Europe of the 1890s to 1940s can not 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 schema, the emergence of a single European state (in the form of the EU) is out of a desire to prevent future wars rather than as a consequence of one side within any European Civil War winning and exerting its influence over the others.