To what extent and in what senses did European nations industrialise 1815-1914?

The extent of industrialisation of any one European nation by 1914 can only be evaluated within the context of its competitors because of the obvious lack of an absolute scale of measurement of industrialisation. Having established that, we can measure industrialisation by examining their industrial output, agrarian progress, development of new industries and other factors. Perhaps more important, though less apparent, is the degree to which social and political change is also an indicator of the level of industrialisation. Industrialisation needs to be considered as a holistic concept in trying to look beyond the facts of economic growth to the societal changes which were both prerequisites and consequences of the process of industrialisation. When we do this, we find that European industrialisation in the nineteenth century should be grouped into three distinct categories. Firstly, there are the nations which managed to become advanced, world-leading industrial economies by 1914 (although this point had usually been reached many years earlier) such as Great Britain, Belgium and Germany. Secondly, a group including France, the Habsburg Empire and Scandinavia, which did manage to industrialise in the period but which were not of the first rank of industrialisers whether because of problems in their development or the scale of their industrialisation. Lastly, Russia, Italy, Spain and the peripheral countries belong to the third category of partial industrialisers, who not only were not particularly competitive compared to the leading nations but whose industrialisation was incomplete by the end of our period. The most fundamental approach to take when assessing European industrialisation in the nineteenth century is to examine the extent to which individual economies were transformed by a shift from primary to secondary economic activities and the extent to which they increased their industrial output. Effective industrialisation in Europe was marked by significant increases in the output of industrial sectors, primarily steel, coal and textile production but others in addition notable examples being the development of the chemical industry and the phenomenal expansion of railway systems from the middle of the century to the end of our period. Although there is a degree of uncertainty and imprecision surrounding the statistics that we have available, we can use them as estimates for measuring industrialisation. Some of the statistics that we should pay particular attention to are changes in output of certain industries over time, GNP, per capita income and the percentage of the national labour force in different industries. These figures are most useful when we can use them to compare different nations, as this partially bypasses questions over how accurate they are as absolute measures. What this shows us is that in general, virtually every country in Europe had either fully industrialised or was well on the way to doing so by the outbreak of World War One. That Britain and Germany had become advanced industrial economies by 1914, especially in comparison to their competitors, is beyond doubt Germany increased its industrial output tenfold in the second half of the nineteenth century alone1. Belgium had also emerged as an industrial leader, largely thanks to a lucrative coal belt which it was able to exploit early on, and had the largest production per head on the continent until 19102. Even the northern nations of Denmark,
1 2

Cipolla, CM The Emergence of Industrial Societies (Fontana 1973) pp. 79 Cameron, Rondo A New View of European Industrialization The Economic History Review New Series, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb 1985) pp. 11

Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands managed to double, triple and even (in Denmarks case) quadruple their per capita GNPs from 1830 to 19133. Then there were nations which we can still consider to have industrialised in the nineteenth century, but which were either not as successful or began growing later than the first industrialisers. France and the Habsburg Empire belong to this group. In the past the extent and pace of the industrialisation of both of these countries has been underestimated, but by 1900 France had certainly been outstripped by Britain and Germany, while Austro-Hungarian growth was effective yet localised and hindered by the economic disparities between the different regions of the empire. The third group of industrialisers to be discussed are those that were only partially industrialised by 1914, most notably Italy and Russia but Spain and much of Eastern Europe should be included in this category. Though industrialisation in these countries did happen, especially with rapid growth in Italy and Russia in the two decades before the outbreak of world war, they remained predominantly backwards, agrarian economies. In trying to determine the extent to which European nations industrialised in the nineteenth century, it is perhaps more useful to determine whether and how their agricultural sectors were transformed. With the possible exceptions of Britain and Belgium, agriculture formed the basis for all European economies in 1815. Increases in agricultural productivity and the reform or removal of traditional agrarian systems, such as feudalism, were a fundamental requirement for industrialisation. Without such changes each country would have been unable to support a growing population with an adequate food supply, there could be no shift from landownership as the primary means of wealth generation to an emphasis on capital-intensive industries, the necessary labour force would not have been available to work in developing industries and consumer markets would have remained limited. Although regional realities were sometimes more complicated than these simplifications suggest, in general a stagnant agrarian sector precluded efficient industrialisation and there is a close correlation between economic growth in this period and modernised agriculture. Therefore, by looking at the developments in agriculture that each country made, we can indirectly measure the extent of industrialisation in that economy. Modernisation of agriculture can be measured by statistics showing the percentage of a countrys labour force engaged in the agrarian sector and the national output of agrarian produce. We noted in the previous paragraph that Spain and Russia were less successful industrialisers in the nineteenth century. Statistics show that the percentage of Russias population working in agriculture dropped only marginally from 87% in 1890 to 86% in 1910, while Spains actually slightly increased from 66% in 1860 to 68% in 19004. On the other hand, the agricultural percentage of the labour force in the industrial leaders, Britain and Germany, fell significantly. Britains agricultural workers made up 22% of the labour force in 1841, but only 9% in 1901, while Germanys farmers went from 45% in 1871 to 36% in 1895. These figures are made even more impressive by the fact that they begin at least two decades after the main thrust of industrialisation in either of these countries was begun and so it is reasonable to assume that the drop in percentage of the workforce was even larger when the whole period of industrialisation is considered. It must be conceded that Britain was supplied by its global Empire and therefore was able to shift capital away from the agricultural sector in a manner which European countries, constrained by the need to feed burgeoning populations, could not. However, even if we just consider the Continent, the evidence supports the argument that extensive
3 4

Pollard, Sidney Peaceful Conquest (OUP 1981) pp. 233 Trebilcock, C The Industrialisation of the Continental Powers (Longman 1981) 435

industrialisation only occurred (and perhaps was therefore only possible) in countries which substantially improved agriculture. Germany nearly tripled its agricultural productivity between 1840 and 19005, and these decades are marked by the greatest levels of industrial growth that we find across Europe. France did improve its agrarian sector but experienced the corollary: only a moderate level of growth to take the example of wheat, France improved its production in 1909-14 by 68% over what it produced in 1831, which was a very reasonable achievement given stagnant population levels. Yet actually French agricultural output per capita fell to about 65% of British productivity by 1905-136 and this was reflected in having only a medium-sized per capita GNP in 1910 when compared to all the major European nations7. The lack of agricultural development in France illustrates its relative economic backwardness. Although the Habsburg Empire, in particular the agrarian region of Hungary, is one notable exception to this analysis because rapid agricultural growth was not matched by equivalent industrialisation, agrarian sophistication is still a good measure of the extent of European industrialisation. However, industrialisation is more than mechanisation and numerical growth. The process of industrialisation is both a result and a cause of societal change and so to be able to determine how far European nations industrialised it is necessary to look at the societies as wholes and try to deduce patterns of change. We can measure wages throughout the period. Higher wages, especially when occurring at the same time as slower growth since capital has been invested in areas with lower production costs, suggest industrialisation because they imply a higher level of productivity. Another pattern is found in applying a Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI). When the PQLI is brought to bear on a limited number of countries in this period, the data suggests that Italy was a significant distance behind other European countries by the outbreak of the First World War in terms of literacy rates and life expectancies. Indeed, even in 1910 Italy still had a lower overall PQLI index than England and France had had in 18708. Although there was an extreme development disparity between the North and the South of Italy throughout our period which affected the overall result, even the more advanced North still deeply lagged behind other nations. A plausible explanation for Italys shortcomings is that the process of industrialisation in Italy by 1914 was incomplete and so social change, such as the development of a middle class which would have resulted in a higher PQLI, had not happened. This kind of clear result is very much the exception rather than the rule, with data inaccuracies and incompleteness, so we need to judge on an evidential basis, rather than a purely statistical one, how far society had been transformed. Agricultural reform is an example of the kind of structural change to society that industrialisation needed and provoked, as discussed earlier. While the feudal institutions of serfdom in Russia were not as much of a hindrance to industrialisation as has been thought, in general industrialisation involved a shift from the traditional system designed to provide the maximum sustainable income to the (absentee) lessor to one that was more flexible, individualist and geared towards maximising productivity rather than social standing. Subsistence agriculture largely prevailed in Germany and the Habsburg Empire until serfdom was phased out, with the entailed unproductive and uninnovative agriculture, and this lingered even until the end of our period in Spain and the periphery (which correspondingly were
5 6

Ibid. pp. 434 Pollard, Sidney Peaceful Conquest (OUP 1981) pp. 54 7 Sylla, R and Tonniolo, G (ed.) Patterns of European Industrialisation in the Nineteenth Century (Routledge 1991) pp. 228 8 Ibid. pp. 201

some of the worst industrialisers). Social change and agrarian development allowed population growth, which created a labour surplus economy. Industrialised countries in this period were marked by high rates of urbanisation as the excess labour force emigrated to industrial and political centres. Although the level of urbanisation in 1910 reflects the regional nature of industrialisation, more backwards countries do have a lower level of urbanisation. Yet the most important societal measure of the extent and sense of industrialisation is the transformation of national government in size and influence over the countrys economy. Industrialised nations produced a middle class, cities and industries which forced the state to legislate, create policy and provide economic direction on a scale which it had never had to before. Nationalist developments resulting in German and Italian unification, expanded bureaucracies and state powers were all products of successful industrialisation. In conclusion, economic statistics such as GNP and industrial productivity, agricultural development and societal change combine to give a clear impression of the delineation of the extent of European industrialisation from 1815-1914. Many other factors could and perhaps ought to have been included or studied in more detail: the importance of banking and the flow of capital to the process of industrial growth, the impact of emigration on economic activity and society, the improvement of infrastructure and increased trade which not only stimulated economic growth and technological advance but also promoted an unprecedented level of interdependence among previously-isolated regions and nations. Although the processes of industrialisation were complex and diverse they contained basic similarities which allow comparison between nations. As described above, the three broad divisions of European nations according to their success in economic development is supported by virtually all measures statistical or otherwise. Germany, Britain and (marginally) Belgium were certainly the economic leaders by 1914 in terms of industrialisation, even though other countries were able to compete in terms of absolute GNP or population. France and the Habsburg territories were moderately successful industrialisers while Russia, Italy and other states had not managed to achieve a level of industrialisation comparable to the leaders. Within each country there were certainly regional disparities the North of Italy did in fact achieve a good level of industrialisation but towards the end of our period the growth of national government makes nations rather than regions the primary unit of study. European industrialisation had been at times stochastic and at others consistent, but the increasing tensions of economic competition were now to pave the way towards world war. Bibliography Pollard, Sidney Peaceful Conquest (OUP 1981) Cipolla, CM The Emergence of Industrial Societies (Fontana 1973) Sylla, R and Tonniolo, G (ed.s) Patterns of European Industrialisation in the Nineteenth Century (Routledge 1991) Trebilcock, C The Industrialisation of the Continental Powers (Longman 1981) Teich, M and Porter, R (ed.s) The Industrial Revolution in National Context (CUP 1996) Cameron, Rondo A New View of European Industrialization The Economic History Review New Series, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb 1985) Sable, C and Zeitlin, J Historical Alternatives to Mass Production Past & Present, No. 108 (Aug, 1985) Allen The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War Explorations in Economic History 38 (2001)