The striking periodicity of the wars in Europe is also noticed by Dr. E.
Zasse. Beginning with 1700 A.D., every ten years have been signalized
by either a war or a revolution. The periods of the strengthening and
weakening of the warlike excitement of the European nations represent a
wave strikingly regular in its periodicity, flowing incessantly, as if
propelled onward by some fixed inscrutable law. This same mysterious
law seems also to connect these events with the astronomical wave or
cycle, which governs the periodicity of solar spots. The periods when
the European powers have shown the most destructive energy are marked by
a cycle of fifty years' duration. It would be too long and tedious to
enumerate them from the beginning of history. We may, therefore, limit
our study to the cycle beginning with the year 1712, when all the
European nations were fighting each other in the Northern, and the
Turkish wars, and the war for the throne of Spain. About 1761, the
"Seven Years' War"; in 1810, the wars of Napoleon I. Towards 1861, the
wave has been a little deflected from its regular course; but, as if to
compensate for it, or propelled, perhaps, with unusual force, the years
directly preceding, as well as those which followed it, left in history
the records of the most fierce and bloody wars--the Crimean War in the
former, and the American Civil War in the latter period. The periodicity
in the wars between Russia and Turkey appears peculiarly striking, and
represents a very characteristic wave. At first the intervals between
the cycles of thirty years' duration--1710, 1740, 1770 then these
intervals diminish, and we have a cycle of twenty years--1790, 1810,
1829-30; then the intervals widen again--1853 and 1878. But if we take
note of the whole duration of the in-flowing tide of the war-like cycle,
then we shall have at the centre of it--from 1768 to 1812--three wars of
seven years' duration each, and at both ends, wars of two years.
Finally, the author comes to the conclusion that, in view of facts, it
becomes thoroughly impossible to deny the presence of a regular
periodicity in the excitement of both mental and physical forces in the
nations of the world. He proves that in the history of all the peoples
and empires of the Old World, the cycles marking the millenniums, the
centennials as well as the minor ones of fifty and ten years' duration,
are the most important, inasmuch as neither of them has ever yet failed
to bring in its train some more or less marked event in the history of
the nation swept over by these historical waves.
The history of India is one which, of all histories, is the most vague
and least satisfactory. Yet were its consecutive great events noted
down, and its annals well searched, the law of cycles would be found to
have asserted itself here as plainly as in every other country in
respect of its wars, famines, political exigencies, and other matters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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