1848 Revolutions

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1848 Revolutions
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Ancien Regime

• Absolute Monarchies
• Form of government where the monarch controls the
  right to make war, tax, judge, and coin money.
• Up to 19th Century
• The Most Widespread Traditional Form of
  Government in Europe
• Notable exceptions
• Ancient Greece
• Republican Rome
• Oliver Cromwells Commonwealth
• American Revolution

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French Revolution

• Absolute Rulers
• Decadent
• Remote
• Ignorant of masses
• The Consent to be ruled by an absolute monarch
  withdrawn
• The Mob
• The Terror
• Revolution Hijacked
• Napoleon

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Napoleon

• Spread Ideas of French Revolution throughout
  Europe
• By force
• Equality
• Meritocracy
• Secular
• Code Napoleon
• Modernisation
• Centralisation
• Nationalism employed to Defeat Napoleon

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Congress of Vienna

• Attempt to reintroduce Ancien Regime
• Legitimate Monarchy
• Bourbons Reinstated
• Authority of Church
• Aristocratic Privelege
• Congress imposed without consent of any peoples
• Imposed by victorious aristocracies
• Power politics and Realpolitik over National
  Feelings
• Buffer Zones

Metternich We have redrawn Europes Map For
Eternity
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Imposing Ancien Regime Principles 1815 - 1830

• Repressive Measures
• Britain
• Six Acts
• Peterloo
• Naples
• Minister of Vengeance
• Austria-Hungary
• Secret Police
• Agents Provocateurs
• Conservativism Ascendant

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Localised Revolutions

• Greece, Naples, Spain
• France
• 1830
• Over Royal Prerogative
• King tried to reduce electorate to Chamber of
  Deputies
• Bourbons replaced by Duc DOrleans

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New Challenges to Ancien Regimes

• Liberalism
• Democracy
• Republican Democrats
• Socialism
• Nationalism

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Liberalism

• Government needs Consent of Responsible
  Classes
• Features
• Sovereignty of Parliament (not of People)
• Freedom of Press and Speech
• Individual Freedom
• Attracted
• Nouveau Riche
• Emerging Middle Classes
• Manufacturers, Industrialists, Merchants
• Traditional Institutional Power to be restrained
• Church
• Protestant Ideals preferred to Catholic ones
• Monarchy
• Headway
• Britain and Belgium

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Liberal Ideas on Universal Suffrage

• No people should be electors unless their income
  and intelligence indicated that they had a vested
  interest in social order. Ideally the electorate
  should be the mercantile classes, the professions
  and especially the owners of land. Cavour 1847
• If you want to ruin a state, give universal
  suffrage. Barrot, Opposition Leader, France

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DemocracyRepublican - Democrats

• Government should express Will of the People
• Universal Suffrage
• Republicans
• One man, one vote
• Remove Monarchy
• Democrats would appeal to Working Class Support
• Wary of repeat of 1792 Terror
• Appealed to
• Petite Bourgoisie, Students, Elementary School
  teachers
• Headway
• France, Italian States, exiled Poles

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Socialism

• Want social and economic reorganisation of
  country in addition to political reorganisation
• Socialist dilemma
• How to achieve economic reorganisation!
• Peaceful Social Reformers
• Robert Owen
• Adam Smith Moral Conscience
• Common ownership of means of production and
  distribution
• Marx Engels
• Communist Revolution
• Insurrectionary, militant
• Appealed to
• Educated Artisans

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Nationalism

• The belief that a group of people who shared a
  common language, history, heritage, culture and
  possibly religion, should be brought together to
  form a Nation state.
• Requires consent of people on a form of
  government
• Therefore could be combined with other ideologies
  eg liberalism, democracy
• Napoleon inspired French Nationalism and
  resistance to French Nationalism
• Appealed to
• Educated literate classes, professionals,
  middle classes
• Role of culture, arts, tradition in defining
  national consciousness
• Italian Resorgimento movement
• Combined Liberal Nationalists and Republican
  Nationalists
• Diversity of ideology hinders Nationalism

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Pre-1848 Tensions

• Long Term
• Industrialisation
• Coal, iron, textiles
• Economic challenge to rulers
• Migration
• Rural to Urban Centres
• Urbanisation
• Communications
• Challenge to Artisans
• Population
• Doubled in previous century
• Food Supply Problems
• Malthus
• Ideological Challenges
• Liberalism, Nationalism, Democracy, Socialism

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Pre-1848 Tensions

• Short Term
• Agricultural Crisis
• Poor Cereal Harvest
• Prices rise by 60 in a year
• Potato Blight
• Prices rise by 135 in a year
• Uncertainty of Supply
• 70 of Wages on food
• Financial Crisis
• Investment bubbles burst
• Railways, Iron, coal
• Less money to spend on manufactured goods
• Unemployment
• Working and Middle Classes, joined in misery as
  are urban and agricultural populations

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1848 Revolutions

• Unclear Reasons for Revolutionary Activity
• Reaction to Long term and Short term
  Socio-Economic causes
• Competing Ideologies in different countries
• Some Countries have no revolutions
• Britain Russia
• Different Revolutionary leaders, aims and
  aspirations in different countries
• Varying Combinations of Liberals, Democrats,
  Nationalists and Socialists
• No clear coherent organised Revolutions

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Case Study France A Revolution hijacked not
once, not twice, but thrice!

• 1830 1848 a weak, corrupt Orleanist Monarchy
• Restricted privileged electorate of 240,000
• Liberal bourgeoisie demand incorporation into
  electorate
• Reduction of Property qualification from 200 to
  100 Francs
• Intransigent stand of Louis Philippe
• Conservative establishment alienates Liberals
• Reform Banquets used to protest against King
• Paris Banquet banned by authorities
• Liberals agree but radical Republicans continue
  demos
• Troops open fire on peaceful protesters
• Barricades erected, looting, civil disorder
• National Guard defect
• King loses control of Paris
• Abdicates 24th February to Republican Provisional
  Government

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The Provisional Government falls to the
Conservatives

• Provisional Government
• Odd collection of radical Moderate Republicans
• Radical social reform v constitutional
  parliamentary rule
• Conservative Liberal suspicion of Republicanism
  (memories of 1792 Terror)
• Financial Disarray
• Flight of capital stock market crashes 55
• New 45 increase of tax imposed on peasantry
• Handing power back to the Conservatives
• April Elections
• Universal Suffrage (9,000,000)
• Peasants suspicious of socialist plans to
  nationalise land
• Politically Immature Peasants sought advice
  from betters
• Easter Sunday
• Republicans won 80 seats (of 900 available)
• Conservatives Monarchists won 700 seats

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The Second Republic elects a leader who will kill
the Republic!

• The Constituent Assembly elects a new moderate
  executive
• Unhappy Republicans recommence Revolution
• Radicals and Socialists
• Liberty or Death
• June Days Barricades
• Forces of Law Order do not buckle a second time
• 3,000 rioters killed, 12,000 arrested
• December Presidential Elections
• Louis Napoleon 74 Cavaignac 19
• Napoleon offers stability and familiarity
• Kills off 1848 Liberal, Socialist and Republican
  dreams once and for all!
• New elections called May 1849
• Conservatives 500 seats
• Republicans up to 200 seats
• Result unsettles Louis Napoleon
• Repressive measures extensively employed
• Freedom of speech restricted
• Franchise reduced (poorest 33 removed)
• 1851 Coup detat

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The Habsburg Empire Rocks to the Core

• Nature of Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Very Conservative Monarchy
• Regency
• Archduke Ludwig for Ferdinand
• Court Intrigue
• Metternich versus Kolowrat in Konferenz with
  Ludwig and Karl
• Racially Diffuse
• Corrupt and Inefficient
• Severe economic difficulties (in response to
  rising Germany)
• Racial Character of Multi-National Empire
• The Liberal Revolution
• Influence of French Events
• Liberals take heart
• Demand removal of Arch-Reactionary Metternich
  limited reforms of government
• Meetings and Demonstrations dispersed by Gunfire
• Antagonises situation Barricades erected
• Liberal Amazement
• Metternich resigns March 13th 1848
• Constitution Granted Censorship lifted

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The National Revolutions

• Emboldened by events in Vienna
• Hungary
• New Liberal regime established
• Kossuth
• Magyar Language qualification
• To promote Hungarians
• Antagonises Slavs
• Bohemia
• Czechs emboldened by Magyars
• Liberal Government set up in Prague
• Italy
• Lombardy and Venice rise up
• Joined by Piedmont

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The Radicalisation of the Liberal Revolution

• Students and Democrats emboldened
• Stream of Petitions
• April 25th Liberal Constitution proposed of
  elected assembly to share power with Emperor
• Radicals rejection of limited concessions
• May 15th Elections agreed for new assembly to
  decide new constitution
• May 17th Royal Family legs it
• New government abolishes Serfdom

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Liberal Austrian Weaknesses

• Slavic and National Rivalries
• Revealed by Pan-Slavic Congress
• Poor communications
• Failure to broaden appeal of Revolution
• Urban Liberals antagonise Rural Population
• Tax burden falls on peasantry
• Newly freed serfs are content
• Army owes allegiance to Royal Family

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The Counter-Revolution

• Loyal Army defeats Italians
• Returning Confidence from other
  Counter-Revolutions
• Russians show Autocratic Solidarity
• Divide and Conquer

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The Brief History of Liberal Germany

• Confederation of Germany
• Congress of Vienna
• Buffer State
• 39 Sovereign States
• Prussia Austria vied for domination

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The King of Prussia

• Frederick William IV
• Mad as a Hatter
• Anti-Liberal but Arthurian Medieval Romanticist
• Agricultural Romanticist
• Relied on Junker Support
• Prussia
• Efficient
• Good Finances
• Strong Military

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Following the French

• February French Revolutions
• Many riots in Minor German States
• Liberals, Democrats and Socialists take advantage
• Austria and Prussia expected to intervene to
  crush revolutions BUT
• Vienna Revolution Fall of Metternich
• Berlin riots
• Army efficiently suppressing revolutionaries
  However King Frederick William IV withdraws
  Troops and hands victory to Prussian Liberals
• Other Princedoms collapse when Prussias nerve
  fails

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The Liberals cannot believe their luck

• German National Assembly in Frankfurt
• Organised Constituent Assembly
• Universal Suffrage
• But only elected Privileged Notables
• Little Experience
• A German Ruler
• Choose Austrian Habsburg Archduke John rather
  than King of Prussia
• Well Known Liberal Sympathiser
• But cannot guarantee loyalty of Prussian Army

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Liberals Fail to broaden Support

• Impose Law and Order
• Keen to impress existing rulers
• Alienate democrats / socialists
• Suppression of National minorities
• Danes in Schleswig Holstein
• Czechs in Bohemia
• Use Prussians and Austrians to suppress
• However, support Poles
• To antagonise Russians
• But antagonises Prussian Junkers more

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Prussian Resurgence

• Army moves to crush new Polish Grand Duchy
• Parliament cannot stop it
• Prussian parliament disagrees with Frankfurt
  parliament
• Prussian army invades Schleswig Holstein (at
  Frankfurts request)
• Horrifies international liberal opinion
• Britain and Russia threaten war with Prussia
• Prussia agrees to own peace with Denmark
• Abandons Frankfurt government
• Frankfurt realises that it has no army!

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Austria and Prussia back in Business

• Austria reasserts control in Vienna
• Frederick William deposes Berlin parliament
• Frankfurt parliament offers emperorship to
  Prussian King
• Frederick William declines
• Realist liberals realise parliament dead
• Radicals take to the barricades again
• Prussian army crushes all resistance

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The Bottom Line for Germany

• Success of Revolution Discredited Conservative
  ideas
• Failure of Revolution Discredited Liberal Ideas
• Too many Chiefs not enough Indians
• Little Popular Support
• Union of Liberals and Democrats not followed up
• Democrats alienated
• Rule of Force the only winner
• Massive exodus of liberal intelligentsia
• Liberalism died in Germany
• Militarism, hierarchy, statism triumphant
• Capitalists follow suit

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The Bottom Line for the 1848 Revolutions

• It appeared as if the Conservatives reasserted
  control
• However
• Things had changed forever
• Economic/social problems permanent challenges to
  ruling order
• Conservatives would have to make concessions to
  remain in power
• Many of the limited Liberal achievements remained
  permanent
• The 1850s/60s would see the most liberal period
  in European History