The Aristocratic Obsession with Big Game Hunting

In the twilight of European aristocracy, hunting became more than a pastime—it transformed into a spectacle of dominance over nature. The future King Edward VII’s 1875 Ceylon elephant hunt exemplified this ethos. A 1,500-strong entourage spent two weeks constructing an elevated shooting platform, only for the prince to wound two elephants after a five-hour wait. His subsequent pursuit through tropical undergrowth to claim a tail trophy mirrored the era’s brutal sporting ethos.

Such exploits weren’t unique. Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s 300,000-animal kill tally included his infamous 59-of-60 wild boar slaughter during a German hunt. These bloodsports reflected a worldview where nature existed for human subjugation—a perspective that would contribute to the extinction of species like the great auk, whose last British specimen was killed in 1844 by fishermen blaming it for summoning storms.

The Paradox of Cultivated Wilderness

While elites slaughtered wildlife, landscape aesthetics underwent a philosophical revolution. The rigid formalism of 18th-century gardens gave way to Gertrude Jekyll’s “wild gardens”—meticulously designed to appear spontaneous. This artificial naturalism, championed by William Robinson, created curated wildernesses more vibrant than nature itself. Yet these same aristocrats who prized naturalistic gardens showed no compunction about decimating actual ecosystems.

The great auk’s tragic fate epitomized this contradiction. Prized for eggs and taxidermy, the flightless bird vanished by 1844, joining the Portuguese ibex (1892) and European wild horse (1909) in extinction. Egg collecting became a status competition, with a single auk egg fetching a laborer’s annual wage—a perverse commodification of biodiversity.

Mountains as Playgrounds and Barriers

Europe’s alpine ranges presented both obstacles and opportunities. The Alps’ 4,800-meter peaks had long isolated communities—Swiss villages wintered in snowbound isolation, living with livestock in smoke-filled chalets. Napoleon’s road-building campaigns began taming these barriers, but mountaineering transformed peaks into sporting venues.

Alfred Wills’ 1854 Wetterhorn ascent pioneered recreational climbing, though Edward Whymper’s 1865 Matterhorn triumph—marred by four deaths—revealed the risks. Meanwhile, Norwegian students introduced skiing to Germany’s Harz Mountains, where locals initially laughed at these “madcap” snow riders. By the 1880s, Alpine resorts like St. Moritz capitalized on winter tourism, with skiing clubs teaching locals a skill that “liberated mountain life.”

The Vanishing Forests

Europe’s woodlands faced unprecedented threats. While Scandinavia retained 66% forest cover, England’s had dwindled to 5% by 1900. Russia’s timber industry felled 600,000 trees annually just to maintain Minsk’s wooden buildings—each peasant izba required rebuilding every 15 years due to rot.

Deforestation’s consequences became alarmingly apparent. Russian agronomist Vadim Passek noted in 1836 how clear-cutting worsened droughts and frosts. Italy lost 2 million hectares in 50 years, with landslides increasing as root systems vanished. The Alps’ denuded slopes inspired French economist Adolphe Blanqui’s grim prophecy: “Within 50 years, only desert will remain between France and Savoy.”

Rivers Tamed, Marshes Drained

Hydraulic engineering projects reshaped Europe’s waterways. Johann Tulla’s 1812 Rhine rectification shortened the river by 82 km, creating farmland while destroying wetlands. Similar projects tamed the Danube’s Iron Gates rapids and the Tiber’s floods, though not without cost—Tulla himself died of malaria from exposed marshlands.

Italy’s Fucine Lake drainage (1862-1875) exemplified grand reclamation schemes. Banker Alessandro Torlonia spent fortunes reviving ancient Roman canals, prompting Roman wags to joke: “Either Torlonia drains the lake, or the lake drains Torlonia.” By 1907, Ferrara Province had reclaimed 80,000 hectares from the Po Delta.

When the Earth Shook

Natural disasters reminded Europeans of nature’s power. The 1908 Messina earthquake killed 75,000-200,000, triggering 12-meter tsunamis. Earlier disasters included Zagreb’s 1880 quake (1,500 buildings damaged) and Iceland’s 1875 Askja eruption that poisoned livestock across Scandinavia.

Urban conflagrations proved equally devastating. Hamburg’s 1842 fire destroyed 1,100 buildings despite firefighters dynamiting entire blocks. London’s 1834 Westminster Palace blaze, sparked by burning tally sticks, inspired Charles Barry’s iconic Gothic Revival replacement. Even remote Ålesund, Norway saw 10,000 left homeless in a 1904 inferno.

The Psychological Landscape

Forests occupied Europe’s imaginative geography as much as its physical one. Grimm fairy tales set moral dramas among dark woods—Snow White’s refuge, Hansel and Gretel’s peril. German conservative Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl romanticized forests as “the heartland of folk culture,” while Polish rebels used them as guerrilla hideouts.

Rural arson revealed societal tensions. Bavarian studies (1879-1900) showed 114 cases often stemmed from family vendettas—like the brother who torched his sibling’s mill, confessing: “I did it because he abused our mother.” Chekhov’s 1897 story Peasants depicted village fires as moments of collective trauma, with women wailing “as at a funeral.”

The Environmental Reckoning

By century’s end, nascent conservation emerged alongside continued exploitation. Reforestation efforts saw Russia’s Don Cossacks plant 33,000 hectares by 1900, though survival rates remained dismal (20 of 127 hectares in Samara, 1885). Scotland’s commercial plantations—50 million trees at Sighthill alone—prioritized profit over ecology.

The era’s legacy remains conflicted: Alpine tourism preserved mountain cultures while transforming them; hunting conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt emerged from the bloodsport tradition; and engineering triumphs came at ecological cost. As Europe stood on the brink of industrialization’s next phase, its relationship with nature remained profoundly ambiguous—simultaneously celebrating wilderness while seeking to dominate it utterly.