THE DECLINE OF AUTOCRACY 
AND ITS RELATION TO WARFARE 
A Look into the History of the Last Five Centuries—Autocracy Associated with 
Wars—Tendencies toward Democracy in Development of Modern Civilization 
FREDERICK ADAMS Woops 
° x J 
Lecturer on Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
AN war be abolished? Will auto- 
crats disappear? Are democra- 
cies less prone to warfare than are 
other forms of government? To 
what extent have the great tyrants of 
the past been responsible for the warfare 
that has been waged? These are some 
questions to which we would like an 
answer. 
Without supposing that history can 
positively answer these questions, it is 
justifiable, considering the importance 
of the subject, to seek what light we 
may; and so it is interesting to make an 
appeal to the extended records of the 
past and see if there is any evidence that 
autocrats have been long disappearing, 
or that they have been a predisposing 
cause of war. It will doubtless be of 
welcome interest to many persons to 
know that history’s answer to both of 
these questions is in the affirmative. 
European autocrats have been decreas- 
ing numerically ever since the twelfth 
century—those of the more powerful 
sort since the sixteenth. 
In regard to their relation to war, 
it is highly probable that states of war- 
fare, whatever be their cause, are 
especially favorable to single-handed 
governance. Therefore we ought not 
to say that great autocrats are here 
shown to be a cause of war, though very 
likely to a considerable extent they may 
be; but at least we have evidence that 
the two are associated. This is proved 
by an analysis of the history of eleven 
European nations. The nations include 
Austria, Denmark, England, France, 
Holland (or the Netherlands), Poland, 
Prussia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and 
Turkey. The period covered extends 
from the present day to as far into the 
past as records are available. For most 
of these countries, however, it is not 
practicable to carry such a study back 
of the sixteenth century. For England 
and France the records enable us to 
extend the research to the beginning of 
the twelfth century. 
YEARS OF WAR 
__ It would of course be of added interest 
if something more than the mere years 
of war and years of peace could be dis- 
cussed, since it may be that great wars 
were more associated with autocrats 
than were small wars, but in the absence 
of sufficient data there can be no harm 
in first making the simple analysis and 
answering the question: Are autocracies 
especially associated with periods of 
war? Any book of dates concerning 
periods of war will conflict somewhat 
with any other book, since a certain 
amount of personal judgment necessar- 
ily enters into any compilation. Some- 
times it is hard to tell a war from a riot 
More often it is hard to tell just when a 
war begins and ends. Mr. Alexander 
Baltzly compiled under my direction 
and in association with the Department 
of Government in Harvard University 
a complete list of all European wars of 
modern times. This was published in 
1915. It was put together just prior to 
the late war with the hope of throwing 
light on the question whether there 
was any evidence that wars were tending 
to disappear. This book, ‘Is War Di. 
minishing?”’ is, as far as I know, the only 
source of appeal for a comprehensive 
study of European wars. Some special 
studies concerning the wars of single 
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