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125 Years Ago in Mediterranean

Vase with Irises, done 1890, oil on canvas, 92x73.5cm

The south of France becomes a centre of the art movement called Post- Impressionsism. One of the most famous of these artists is the Dutch painter Van Gogh who worked in Arles. His work shows influence from Japanese wood cuts. After more than 200 years of isolation, Japan was forcibly opened to foreign trade, which led to a fad for anything Japanese in Europe.

Once the centre of the powerful Roman Empire, Italy had been disunited since the early medieval age. Italian re-unification, called il Risorgimento, was led by two very different men. One was a revolutionary called Giuseppe Garibaldi, while the other, Count di Cavour, was a nobleman and the prime minister of the North Italian kingdom of Sardinia (Savoy). Following wars against the Bourbon ruled state of the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" and the Papal States (around Rome), the new Kingdom of Italy was declared in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel II as king.

The Turkish Ottoman empire is further weakened by the Balkan Wars of 1877, and 1912-14. Rumania becomes an independent kingdom in 1881, while Turkey is forced to give the Serbian kingdom its freedom as well the following year. Bulgaria becomes fully independent under its own tsar in 1908. Unresolved border issues would be an important factor in starting the First World War.

Between 1859 and 1869, the Suez Canal is built in Egypt, led by the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps. This allows ships to sail directly from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Before ships had to sail all the around Africa to reach the Indian Ocean. In ancient Egypt, there had been a canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile River, and from here to the Mediterranean, but this had fallen into disuse more than 2000 years before. It also made Egypt a vital link on the shipping route between Britain and India--the richest British colony and foundation of its empire. This did not make the future look bright for Egyptian independence.

Egypt's economy under the viceroy or Khedive Mohammed Ali and his successors expanded rapidly after 1850, but only with the use of huge loans from Britain and France. In 1875, the Egyptian government was forced to sell its share in the Suez Canal, but it was still unable to repay its loans. In 1876, Britain and France took over control of the Egyptian economy. This created a nationalist backlash which erupted into a rebellion by unpaid army officers in 1881 under Urabi Pasha. In 1882, a

British-India army occupied Egypt outright after defeating Urabi's army (Urabi was exiled to Ceylon)-- notice how the troops of one colony are used to conquer another.

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