Summary (Lecture.

5)

A) Basis for European Naval (Cannons) advances:

1. Ship design from Arab,
2. Ancient Chinese explosives,
3. European manufactured huge church bells.

B) Explora9ons:
1. West's posiFon changed dramaFcally in the late 15th century with voyages of discovery
trips down the African coast and across AtlanFc.
2. European power went where ships and cannon of the ships could take it and with the
important excepFon of Americas, not beyond.
3. European power expanded through naval advancements, except in the Americas.
4. Europeans controlled ports and islands in Africa and Asia, dominaFng ocean-going trade,
but they could not normally move inland in Africa and Asia.
5. Naval advance based on knowledge of Arab and Chinese technologies, including the
compass.
6. Europeans added to imported technology, introducing guns made both from bronze and
iron, and they guided and projected beOer than the Chinese had managed.
7. and it takes skill and flexibility to import new technologies.
8. They built new sailing ships designed from Arab advances with addiFonal innovaFons.
9. No one had planned church bells with the idea of later, military applicaFons and
operaFng in a war-like society.
10. Europeans faced a problem with reliance on Muslim merchants for valuable goods.
• Religious and economic issues led to European expediFons to solve the problem
• Mediterranean European merchants profited from dealings with Muslims but
Muslims fundamentally held the upper hand in obtaining precious goods from Asia
and brought them to ports in Egypt or the Middle East.
• Europeans, arriving at these ports, faced addiFonal costs, worsening the balance of
payments problem.
• There was a religious conundrum as Europeans heavily depended on merchants of a
hereFcal faith.
11. Vasco da Gama reached India and brought crude iron pots and cloth as it was the fruit of
European manufacture at that point.
12. In Vasco da Gama second expediFon to India, he had no new goods but brought a
fighFng fleet of 21 vessels, bent on overpowering the Muslim merchants in trade.
13. Da Gama and his troops engaged in physical atrociFes, including:
• Burning ciFes and ships,
 • Prisoners butchered and dismembered,
• Body parts were taken as trophies or sent to India as symbols of the arrival of a new
arrival,
• The tones reflected religious tension and a sense of embaOled inferiority, not pride
in Western culture.
14. Despite a persistent balance of payments issue, Europe’s demand for Asian goods
conFnued.
• The overwhelming appeFte for Chinese Porcelain led to it being known as “China” in
English.
• The issue of how to pay for Asian goods persisted, with the European’s growing
fortune changing the dynamics.
• China imported more “New World” silver than any other naFon, beneficng from
colonial problems without having colonies.
• European naFons brought American silver to Maco in China itself or to the
Philippines, where it was picked up by Chinese traders, in return for the treasured
Asian goods.
• The Britain faced a trade imbalance with China due to the massive imports of
Chinese tea without a comparable product to sell.
• Opium, grown cheaply in India, became a valuable product in the trade world, and
so; the opium trade reversed the trade imbalance for Britain but increased addic9on
problems in China.
• The Chinese officials confiscated the BriFsh Opium which led to the first opium war,
where the Bri9sh and French forces fought China to force free trade.
• Military consideraFons, including the need for protecFon of colonies and trade
routes, jusFfied the acquisiFon of territories like Cape Colony and islands in the
AtlanFc and Indian Ocean.

C) Egypt:
1. Egypt iniFated the industrializaFon and modernizaFon under the OOoman rule.
2. Egypt’s industrializaFon was achieved without external debt, relying on internal
resources.
3. A military intervenFon was led by Britain and France, followed by the second
intervenFon by Britain and Austria, compelled Muhammed Ali to give up control of Syria
and PalesFne.
4. Muhammed Ali’s successors gave in to the BriFsh pressure and adopted the free trade
and relied heavily on external debt, marking the beginning of the era of EgypFan debt as
Egypt concede its infrastructure to the Western powers, European bankers, and
entrepreneurs.
 • Bankers of London, Paris and other financial centers were looking forward to
invesFng significant sums in Egypt as well as the OOoman empire and other
conFnents (Europe with the Russian empire and Asia including China, in LaFn
America.
5. European bankers, including the Anglo-EgypFan bank, Austro-EgypFan bank, and
Franco-EgypFan bank, played a significant role in organizing financial flows between
Egypt and European financial centers.
• The laOer had been founded under the auspices of the Creditanstalt where the
Rothschilds of Vienna had stakes.
• ThemajorLondonbankswerealsoparticularlyactive.TheLondonbankersandthe French
bankers specialized in long-term and short-term loans respectively. The latter was
more lucrative since the 1873 banking crisis affecting London and Vienna.

6. The Egyptian external debt had increased 23 times, while revenues increased 5 times
only in less than 15 years, absorbing a significant portion of state revenues and export
earnings.
7. Financial conditions imposed by bankers made debt payment unsustainable,

• Leading Egypt’s Khedive Ismail Pasha to sell the country’s infrastructure,

• granting various concessions to get cash for debt repayment,
• ha to hike taxes on a regular basis,
• Egyptian government sold its shares in the Suez Canal Company to UK.
• British government became the direct creditor of Egypt, receiving interest payments
(5% p.a. on purchase price) on purchased securities.
• Despite the frantic efforts, Egypt suspended its debt servicing.
• There were other countries defaulted such as Ottoman empire, Peru, and Uruguay.

8. The British expanded into Egypt after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, leading to
interests in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Somalia, South Arabia, Palestine, and Iraq.
9. The viability of Egypt depended on the Nile,

• leading the British to worry about this route as the Germans moved into East Africa.
And so, they took control of Kenya and Sudan, and continued to protect the cape
colony (South Africa), especially after the discovery of diamonds there.

10. French expansion into the West Africa driven by the need to protect Algeria.