The Empire of climate is the first of all empires. – Montesquieu 1748

In fact, Europe is not really a continent at all; it is not a self-contained land mass

• Less than ¼ the size of Asia
• 1/3 of Africa
• ½ of each of the Americas

Modern geographers classify as a SUBCONTINENT of EURASIA..> a western appendix of Asia

Europe’s landforms are unique

–          two parallel sea-chains penetrate deep into the interior

…North -> North Sea/Baltic Sea sea lane stretches 1500 miles from Atlantic to Russia

… South..> Mediterranean Sea/Black Sea system stretches over 2400 miles from Gibralter to the Caucasus

–          within these protected seas lie a vast complex of lesser gulfs and islands, as a result …

• the ratio of shoreline to landmass is exceptionally high (23,000 miles of shoreline = Equator) => ACCESSIBILITY

Europe’s western parts served by ‘user-friendly’ climate (no towering peaks, icy currents, or deserts)

Europe’s climate is unusually temperate for the latitude

–          North… mild and moist

–          South…warm, dry, and sunny

The Peninsula presented early man with a stimulating blend of opportunity and challenge -> ARNOLD TOYNBEE

Created a degree of stress that demanded enterprise, BUT was manageable

CF with the ‘pampered’ civilization of Egypt

Distances in Europe were less forbidding, more easily traversed

•  paddle around the coasts
• float down any number of rivers in any direction

FLOWING NORTH: Seine, Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Vistula, Niemen (Latvia), Dvina (Estonia)

FLOWING SOUTH: Ebro, Rhone, Maritsa (Bulgaria) Dnieper, Don, Volga

FLOWING WEST: Tagus, Loire, Svern, Shannon

FLOWING EAST: Thames, Danube, Po, Bug, Dniester

And in between and endless series of short walks and portages

eg. Upper Burgundy (Auxois) one can stroll in a few hours between the waters that take them to the Mediterranean,  the Atlantic, and the English Channel

eg. in the Alps, the sources of the Rhine and the Rhone rise side-by-side near Andermatt

eg. near Vitebsk, (Dvina-Dniepr)one can easily haul a boat which has come from Sweden to a point which will take it to Egypt

Caravans on the silk road from China needed a year or more to cross Asia

…YET, any fit traveler could move across Europe in a matter of weeks if not days

PO (Turin, Milan, Verona, Padua, nr Venice)

TIBER (Rome)

TAGUS (Madrid, Toledo, Lisbon)

EBRO (nr. Barcelona)

THAMES (Oxford, Reading, Windsor, London, Greenwich)

TRENT (Nottingham, Hull)

SEVERN …divides England and Wales… (Gloucester, Worcester, Bristol)

FORTH – Stirling, Edinburgh

SHANNON

DANUBE (Augsburg, Munich, Vienna, Brataslava/Pressburg, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest [Dambovita])

RHINE (Mainz, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Utrecht, Leyden,

NECKAR (Stuttgart, Hiedelburg, Mannheim)

MAIN (Frankfurt, connects to Nuremburg)

• Frankfurt (Ford of the Franks) -> Europe’s Continental financial center (Euro Central Bank)
• Nuremburg -> Pegnitz River triple connection (Rhine, Main, Danube)

RHONE (Geneva, Lyon, Avignon,  Marseilles)

LOIRE ..France’s longest…(Orleans, Tours, Nantes)

SEINE (nr Dijon, Troyes, Paris, Rouen, Le Harve)

GARONNE (Toulouse, Bordeaux)

ELBE and VLTAVA (Prague, Dresden, Magdeburg, Hamburg – linked to Berlin)

ODER – general border of Germany/Poland (Wrocław, Stettin)

VISTULA (Krakow, Warsaw, Gdansk) – short portage to the Dniepr

WESTERN BUG

DNIESTR (Odessa)

DNIEPR – divides Belarus and Ukraine (Smolensk, Kiev)

NIEMEN (border Lithuania/Kaliningrad)

DVINA

NEVA – St. Petersburg

DON (Rostov) à Cossack ‘free people’

VOLGA – 2293 miles (Nizhny Novgorad, Volgograd, Astrakhan)

Divide Europe into regions based on physical and geographical features à 5 natural components

Better than dividing on political lines which are always shifting

1] THE GREAT EUROPEAN PLAIN

stretches w/o interruption from 2400 miles…from Atlantic to the Urals…falling 6000 ft toward the Atlantic

broken up by a series of rivers flowing north/south

–          PRIPET MARSHES east of the Vistula split the plain into two natural pathways

[ Major problem?]  No natural limits to territory à they had to fight for it

–          it’s the plainsmen who had to learn the arts of systematic military organization and occupation

-A) long resisted settlement        – B) nourished the most formidable military powers (Russia, Prussia, France)

lowlands provide the setting for their most titanic encounters:

Kunersdorf            Kursk                     Waterloo

Leipzig                   Tannenberg          Stalingrad

One exception à plain of Pannonia (modern Hungary) only extensive grassland south of the mountain chain

2] THE MOUNTAINS

ALPS stretch 700 miles from Maritime Alps of Provence to Dinaric Alps in Albania – the backbone of Europe!

Highest peaks = Mont Blanc (4807m – 15771ft), Matterhorn (4478m)

Upper reaches with continuous snow are impassable almost everywhere

For over 1200 miles there are only 3 significant gaps in the chain

1)       the Danube Gap in Bavaria

linked north and south via Passau

2)       the Elbe Gap in Bohemia

3)       the Moravian Gap which links Silesia with Hungary

ultimately leads to Vienna

APENNINES stretch 830 miles along entire length of Italy ending in Sicily

CARPATHIANS – Slovakia to Romania

CAUCASUS – stretch from Black to the Caspian Sea

–          Mnt Elbrus 18,481 ft (Europe’s highest)

KJOLENS – dominate Norway

PYRENEES – 270 miles – highest @ 11,000 ft.

URALS – 1640 miles from Russia to Kazhakstan – highest @ 6000 ft.

peoples of the high valleys kept themselves aloof –. Mountain home as refuge and fortress to be defended – Switzerland!

3] THE SEAS

THE MEDITERRANEAN

sea lanes provide basis of self-contained geographical unit — under Caesars it was effectively a Roman lake, BUT area became permanently divided politically once Muslim states take root)

BALTIC – German, Danish, Polish, Russian rivalry

BLACK – Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian

NORTH – England, Scotland, France, Netherlands, Norway

• for all, it was impossible for states to achieve long-lasting dominance
• since undisputed command of Europe’s seas has proved impossible….

* special attention is given to their three strategic gateways

1.. Straits of Gibraltar

                                2..the Dardanelles

                                3.. the Danish Sound

 

4] SUB-PENINSULAS

–          Scandinavia , adjoins the Baltic -à bad climate, secure base

–          Iberia, Italy, and the Balkans, adjoins the Mediterranean

–          Crimea and Caucasus, adjoin the Black Sea

5] ISLANDS— some 10,000 of them

–          Ireland, Iceland, Great Britain, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete – have developed distinct cultures and political entities (one island power amassed the largest empire in the world)

–          they are a part of Europe, yet distinct  [British vs European history]

Special Regions:

The Midi (Southern France):  The only easy passage from the Mediterranean to the northern plain

MARSEILLE at the mouth of the Rhone

A bridge …. The Romans first provence outside Italy

The Danube Basin: The main east-west link between the between the Plains and the Mediterranean

• simplest route to the interior for people from the East
• constituted the principle frontier of the Roman Empire

later the site of the principle confrontation (in Europe) between Christianity and Islam

The Volga Basin

Europe’s largest river and an important cultural barrier (Gates of Europe – limits of Christian settlement)