European Civil War - The Supporting Case

The Supporting Case

Those supporting the idea of a European Civil War contend that the heads of state in many European nations were so closely related as to constitute branches of the same family. European culture is also relatively homogeneous, with most nations tracing the roots of their culture to two principal sources; Christianity and Classical antiquity. Their respective legal systems, while separate, were remarkably similar and evolved to become more so over time.

At the end of the conflict, elites in the different countries of Europe began work to create a community of nations that has since grown into the European Union. The emergence of the EU from World War II is central to the argument, as a civil war typically occurs when competing parties within the same country or empire struggle for national control of state power. Civil wars usually result in the emergence of a new or restrengthened central authority.

Some academics, as mentioned below, regard the First and Second World Wars as part of the same conflict with a 22-year cease-fire. The theory defines the Spanish and Russian civil wars as intermediate conflicts, and links the roots of World War I back to the earlier Franco-Prussian conflict, regarding political changes in Italy, Portugal and elsewhere in a single context.

The central proponents of the European Civil War were originally based at the history department of the London School of Economics. Paul Preston – in his 1996 work The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain 1936–1939 – describes the Spanish Civil War as an "episode in a greater European Civil War that ended in 1945." The department even included the subject as a course in its own right (taught by Dr. Robert Boyce). However, their position has since gained ground with academics elsewhere.

Others who have used the notion of a European Civil War in their work – Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Rome, Anthony Adamthwaite – Professor at UC Berkeley, and Duke University's J. M. Roberts. In his 1996 work A History of Europe, Roberts stated that the "European Civil War ended the dominance of Europe in the world" - a typical claim of the idea's proponents.

An early reference to this concept occurs during the 1970s television series The World at War, when historian Stephen Ambrose comments that 1945 witnessed an invasion of an exhausted Europe by Russian and American armies, "thus ensuring that no European nation actually wins the European Civil War". Earlier still were comments by Indian diplomat K. M. Panikkar in his 1955 book "Asia and Western Dominance 1498-1945".

Patrick J. Buchanan will go on to argue that this European Civil War has led to decline of the West and its world hegemony. His book, "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World", covers this topic extensively, and will connect much of his prophesies in his book, "The Death of the West". Buchanan sees the World Wars as unnecessary conflicts mostly due to British foreign policy mistakes that led not only to the destruction of their own empire but also Western dominance, ideals, culture, and populations.