Reaction, Revolution and Reaction, Revolution and RomanticismRomanticism

1815 – 18501815 – 1850

The Conservative Order

The Governments of Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, as well as the Royalists in France, all sought to return to the pre-revolutionary status quo.

None of the rulers were naïve enough to believe that all of the revolutionary changes could be reversed, but they meant to contain the forces of revolution.

The Peace Settlement

The Quadruple Alliance was formed even before Napoleon’s defeat in order to both defeat the French and to ensure a lasting peace after the war.

After Napoleon's defeat, the Quadruple Alliance restored the old Bourbon monarchy to France in the person of Louis XVIII.

The Congress of Vienna

Representatives of all the European powers, except Turkey, assembled at the Congress at Vienna in September of 1814 to discuss the post-war situation.

The Dancing The Dancing CongressCongress

The Hundred Days

The Congress was interrupted in February 1815 by Napoleon's escape from Elba.

The Great Powers

Most conspicuous among the numerous monarchs who attended the Congress was Alexander I, emperor of Russia.

The Tsar supported such generally unpopular causes as the unification of the German states and the establishment of a constitutional government in Poland.

Great BritainGreat Britain was

represented mainly by its foreign minister Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and by the general and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington.

Castlereagh

The Duke of The Duke of WellingtonWellington

France Although the major

powers had agreed that France should not be party to any important decisions, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand succeeded in securing an equal share in the deliberations.

PrussiaThe principal

delegate from Prussia was Prince Karl August von Hardenberg.

AustriaBy far, the foreign

minister and diplomat who dominated the Congress of Vienna was Klemens von Metternich of Austria.

Metternich pursued the policy of legitimacy, meaning he endeavored to restore legitimate monarchs to the thrones of every major European power in order to preserve traditional institutions and values.

Metternich believed European monarchs shared the common interest of stability.

In order to maintain stability, the Congress of Vienna created policies that would maintain the balance of power among the members of the Quadruple Alliance.

The Polish Question

In Poland the policy of Legitimacy was ignored in favor of more practical politics.

The Prussians and Austrians were both granted small parts of Poland and the rest of the Grand Duchy was made the Kingdom of Poland under the hereditary rule of the Romanovs of Russia.

The French Question

The policy of maintaining the balance of power also dictated the post-war treatment of France.

The fear that France would someday again upset the peace of Europe led to the creation of buffer states around France.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands

The territory of the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Netherlands of Belgium were combined under the hereditary rule of King William I of the house of Orange.

The Kingdom of Sardinia

The territory of the Piedmont and the island of Sardinia were made the Kingdom of Sardinia to be ruled by the House of Savoy.

The Germanic Confederation

The territories along the east bank of the Rhine were given to Prussia and the Confederation of the Rhine was reorganized into the Germanic Confederation.

The Compensation of Austria

Austria was given back most of the territory it had recently lost and was compensated in Germany and Italy (Lombardia and Venice) for the loss of the Austrian Netherlands.

The formerly Venetian part of Dalmatia (now in Croatia) also went to Austria.

The Port of Trieste

The Ideology of Conservatism

The Congress of Vienna marked the beginning of decades of political reactions to the liberal ideologies of the French and American revolutions.

During the period following the fall of Napoleon the dominant political philosophy of Europe was Conservatism.

Conservatism

A philosophy that is adverse to rapid change and innovation and strives for balance and order, while avoiding extremes.

Conservatives advocated belief in faith over reason, tradition over free inquiry, hierarchy over equality, collective values over individualism, and divine or natural law over secular law.

Conservatism emphasizes the merits of the status quo and endorses the prevailing distribution of power, wealth, and social standing.

Edmund Burke

Conservatism was best expressed in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, which emphasized the dangers of radical and "rational" political change.

Burke viewed society as an organic whole, with individuals performing various roles and functions.

In this society a natural elite—by virtue of birth, wealth, and education—is supposed to provide the leadership.

The community is held together by venerable customs and traditions; gradual changes can be made, but only when they have gained wide acceptance.

Burke rejected the principles of equality, popular representation, and popular sovereignty.

Joseph de Maistre “All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.”

The Concert of Europe

The chief accomplishment of the Congress was in reestablishing a balance of power among the countries of Europe, with the result that the peace of Europe remained practically undisturbed for 40 years.

This enduring peace was maintained through the establishment of the Concert of Europe, in which the Quadruple Alliance (later the Quintuple Alliance – with France) was reaffirmed and the Great Powers would meet periodically.

The purpose of the meetings were to ensure peace and end rebellion against the established order through the use of armed intervention.

Intervention

Armed intervention by the allies was successful in ending rebellions against the Bourbons in both Spain and Italy.

Britain disagreed with the use of force to intervene in the internal affairs of a country.

Latin America

The Napoleonic Wars led to open rebellion against Spanish rule throughout Latin America

By 1820, the Concert of Europe was planning armed intervention to restore the Bourbon monarchy’s control over its former colonies in Latin America.

The Monroe Doctrine

British foreign minister George Canning suggested a joint venture with the United States to preserve the interests of both nations by blocking European colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and President James Monroe announced that the U.S. would not allow intervention in Latin America.

“the wake of a British man-of-war”

In reality the most important factor in preventing the European overthrow of the newly independent nations of Latin America was British naval power.

The Greek Revolt

In 1821 Greek nationalists led a revolt against the Ottoman Turks who had ruled the region for over 400 years.

In the first phase (1821-1824) of the war for Greek independence, the Greeks fought virtually alone, aided only by money and volunteers from other European countries, where the Greek cause had aroused a great deal of sympathy.

Liberals and Romantics took up the cause of Greek liberty.

Lord Byron, the Romantic poet, died in Greece while fighting in the revolution.

Lord Byron on his Death-bed c. 1826

The Great Powers Intervene

Because of the strategic importance of Greece on the continent of Europe, the European powers agreed in 1827 to intervene militarily on behalf of the Greeks.

France, Great Britain, and Russia first demanded an armistice, which the Turkish government, commonly known as the Porte, refused.

The European powers then sent naval forces to Greece.

The presence of the naval forces, and the efforts of Russia, in particular, forced the Porte to accept a settlement.

Treaty of Adrianople

In 1829 the Treaty of Adrianople terminated the Russo-Turkish War, which had grown out of both the Greek revolution and Russia's own aspirations in southeastern Europe.

The Kingdom of Greece

In 1830, under the London Protocol, the Allies established the Kingdom of Greece with a German Bavarian prince as the new “Greek” king.

The Conservative Domination

Great BritainIn 1815, Britain was ruled by the

aristocratic landowning classes that dominated both houses of Parliament.

Voting was controlled by the landed gentry and was unequal and restricted.

The Whigs and Tories

The British Parliament was divided into two factions: the Whigs and Tories.

Both factions were still controlled by the landed classes, but the Whigs were receiving support from the new upper middle class generated by the Industrial Revolution.

The ToriesThe Tories controlled

Parliament and became more reactionary with the excesses of the French Revolution and Napoleon.

In 1815, with falling grain prices, the Tories passed the Corn Law which placed extremely high tariffs on imported grain.

The working classes reacted to higher bread prices with outrage and protests.

The Peterloo Massacre

In 1819, a crowd of 60,000 protesters in Manchester was attacked by army cavalry.

Eleven people were killed in the “massacre” and the government reacted by passing repressive measures against the protesters.

Restoration in France

In 1814, the Bourbon king Louis XVIII (brother of Louis XVI) was restored to the throne.

The Constitutional Charter

Understanding the need to maintain some of the revolutionary reforms, the Bourbons agreed to the terms of the Concordat with the Pope and accepted Napoleon’s Civil Code.

Louis was opposed by both the Liberals and the conservative Ultra-Royalists.

The Ultras gained the upper hand in 1824 when Louis was succeeded by Charles X.

Conservative policies of the Ultras led France, once again, to the brink of revolution by 1830.

Intervention in Italy

By 1815, following the Congress of Vienna, the Italian peninsula remained divided into nine states subject to the domination of northern European powers.

Attempts at revolt against the Bourbons and Hapsburg were brutally crushed.

Secret societies, such as the Carbonari kept the spirit of nationalism and revolution alive.

Intervention in Spain

The Spanish Bourbon king Ferdinand VII was restored in 1814.

Refusal to institutes political reforms led to an upper-middle-class rebellion in 1820.

The Concert of Europe intervened, when a French army invaded Spain in 1823.

Ferdinand later imprisoned and tortured to death the leaders of the rebellion.

Repression in Central Europe

Prince Metternich used his secret police to insure that Nationalism and Liberalism were kept in check in Central Europe.

German Nationalism

The Nationalists in the German speaking countries looked to King Frederick William III of Prussia for leadership.

Prussian ReformsThe Prussian government

instituted a number of liberal reforms: abolition of serfdom, municipal governments, expansion of education and universal military conscription.

Following these initial reforms Prussia became more reactionary and remained an absolutist state with no real interest in German unity.

Burschenschaften

The growing forces of liberalism and nationalism in central Europe were best characterized by the Burschenschaften, the radical student societies of Germany.

 Honor, Liberty and Fatherland

The Burschenschaften sought to spread German nationalism and culture through a variety of activities that really worried Metternich and the Conservatives.

The Karlsbad Decrees

The Karlsbad Decrees of 1819 were passed by the Diet of the German Confederation to disband Burschenschaften, impose censorship on the German press and placed most German universities under close government supervision.

The Austrian Empire

The Empire was a multinational state held together by the power of the Hapsburg rulers.

The Germans, who made up one quarter of the population, dominated the country.

Metternich’s policies of repression and reaction held in check the nationalistic feelings of such diverse groups as the Slavs, Magyars and Czechs.

Autocratic Russia

The Russian Tsar, Alexander I, a believer in the ideals of the Enlightenment, abolished many cruel punishments and in 1802 and introduced a more orderly administration of government.

He improved the condition of the serfs and promoted education, doubling the number of Russian universities.

But he refused to grant a constitution or free the serfs.

With the defeat of Napoleon he became more reactionary, reverting to a program of arbitrary censorship and repression against liberal groups such as the National Union.

The Decembrist Revolt

Nicholas I came to the throne after suppressing the Decembrist revolt, staged by reform-minded army officers who favored the accession of his brother Constantine.

Nicholas IHis domestic

policy was autocratic and his foreign policy aggressive.

The Policeman of Europe

He introduced military discipline into the civil service, tried to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas by rigid censorship and strict state control of universities.

The Ideologies of ChangeThe Ideologies of Change

Liberalism, Liberalism, Nationalism and Nationalism and

SocialismSocialism

LiberalismLiberalism

The idea that people should The idea that people should be as free from restraint as be as free from restraint as possible – this is expressed possible – this is expressed in both political and in both political and economic liberalism.economic liberalism.

Economic LiberalismEconomic Liberalism

Also called classical economics, Also called classical economics, economic liberalism is based on economic liberalism is based on the idea of the idea of laissez-faire.laissez-faire.

Government should only involve Government should only involve itself in three things: defense, itself in three things: defense, police and public works.police and public works.

Thomas MalthusThomas Malthus

In his work In his work Essay on the Essay on the Principles of Population, Principles of Population, Malthus argued that population, Malthus argued that population, if left unchecked, increases if left unchecked, increases geometrically while the food geometrically while the food supply increases arithmetically.supply increases arithmetically.

This would lead to This would lead to overpopulation and ultimately overpopulation and ultimately starvation and population starvation and population decline. decline.

Nature imposes checks, like Nature imposes checks, like disease, war, poverty and famine disease, war, poverty and famine to keep populations from to keep populations from exploding.exploding.

ThereforeTherefore ………. ……….

Misery and poverty are the Misery and poverty are the inevitable consequences of the inevitable consequences of the laws of nature.laws of nature.

Individuals, charities and Individuals, charities and governments should not interfere governments should not interfere to help the poor. to help the poor.

David RicardoDavid Ricardo

In his In his Principles of Political Principles of Political Economy, Economy, Ricardo explains his Ricardo explains his “Iron Law of Wages” –“Iron Law of Wages” –

Iron Law of WagesIron Law of Wages

Population growth means more Population growth means more workers; more workers means workers; more workers means lower wages; wages fall below lower wages; wages fall below subsistence level and starvation subsistence level and starvation leads to lower population.leads to lower population.

Lower population leads to higher Lower population leads to higher wages; higher wages leads to more wages; higher wages leads to more food and higher population and the food and higher population and the cycle repeats.cycle repeats.

Trying to raise wages and help the Trying to raise wages and help the poor just makes things worse.poor just makes things worse.

Political LiberalismPolitical Liberalism

Liberals believed in the Liberals believed in the protection of civil liberties and protection of civil liberties and the basic rights and equality of the basic rights and equality of all people. all people.

These rights should be protected These rights should be protected by a written constitution.by a written constitution.

Ministerial ResponsibilityMinisterial Responsibility

Many liberals believed that the state ministers should be responsible to parliaments rather than the King.

Most liberals believed in only limited suffrage.

Liberalism was very much a philosophy of the industrial, upper-middle-class who sought to share power with the landed aristocracy.

Liberals were not democrats.

John Stuart MillIn his work On Liberty, Mill wrote

the quintessential treatise on the liberal philosophy of individual rights.

In his work On the Subjection of Women, he espoused the concepts of equal rights for women.

NationalismA political and cultural

movement in which the nation-state is regarded as paramount for the realization of social, economic, and cultural aspirations of a people.

Nationalism is characterized principally by a feeling of community among a people, based on common descent, language, and religion.

The growing movement of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe was fundamentally radical since it encouraged people to shift their political loyalty away from kings.

The forces of nationalism were opposed by conservatives who feared that the unification of countries of Germany and Italy would upset the balance of power.

They also fought against national groups such as the Hungarians would have upset the status quo by breaking up the Austrian Empire.

Utopian Socialism

The early theories of socialism were based on the ideas that cooperation was superior to competition and that equality must be introduced into social conditions.

The utopians were against private property and the competitive spirit of the industrial revolution

The Utopian Socialists

Henri de saint-Simon believed society should be a cooperative community run by the elite industrialists and intellectuals making government obsolete.

Charles FourierCharles Fourier, worked out

detailed plans for cooperative communities called "phalansteries”

Although his plans remained untested, he best characterized the utopian socialists of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Robert Owen

Was a wealthy Scottish wool manufacturer that turned the factory town of New Lanark, Scotland into a thriving community.

When he tried to establish a cooperative community in the U.S.called New Harmony -- it failed.

Louis Blanc

Frenchman Louis Blanc, in his work The Organization of Work, denounced competition and urged government involvement in the creation of cooperative workshops.

Flora Tristan

The French socialist, Flora Tristan, in her work The Worker’s Union, demanded the absolute equality of the sexes.

Revolution and Reform

1830 – 1850

Another French Revolution

King Charles X (Brother of Louis XVIII) fearing the growing power of liberals in France passed a series of laws in 1830 called the July Ordinances.

The July Ordinances

The laws imposed rigid press censorship, dissolved the legislative assembly and reduced the electorate.

The July Revolution

Reactions were swift and violent with barricades and fighting in the streets of Paris.

Moderate liberals appealed to Louis-Philippe the duke of Orleans and Charles was forced to abdicate.

The Bourgeois King

Louis-Philippe dressed and acted the part of the upper middle class king.

He ignored the call for increased democracy and failed to bring about reforms that would alleviate the poverty of the working class.

Louis-Philippe cooperated with François Guizot and the Party of Resistance who felt that France had reached the “perfect form.”

With the ignoring of the poor and the middle class movement of Adolphe Thiers’ Party of Movement, the stage was set for further revolution in France.

Belgian Revolution

Neutral Belgium

Belgian Nationalists resisted the rule of the House of Orange and in 1830 the Great Powers agreed to the establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium under Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. King Leopold I

Italy and Poland

Nationalist rebellions in Italy and Poland in the same year were brutally crushed by the forces of Austria and Russia.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Reform in Great Britain.

In 1830 the Whigs gained power in Parliament.

The July Revolution in France became a catalyst for reform in Great Britain.

The Reform Act - 1832

Disenfranchised 56 rotten boroughs and enfranchised 42 new towns giving the new industrial urban areas some voice in government.

The bill retained substantial property qualifications and so only benefited the upper middle class of the “moneyed, manufacturing, and educated elite.”

The English Poor Law of 1834

This new reform law was based on the theory that if the conditions for state welfare were intentionally made miserable and degrading, then the poor would be encouraged to find profitable employment.

Repealing the Corn Laws - 1846

Another piece of liberal legislation involved the repeal of the Corn Laws

Manufacturers Richard Cobden and John Bight formed the Anti-Corn Law League to help workers lower bread prices.

The middle class manufactures favored the end of the Corn Laws on the principles of free trade and laissez-faire.

The middle class was satisfied by these reform and England avoided the next round of revolution that was about to sweep across Europe.

The Revolutions of 1848.

The conservative order continued to dominate the continent, despite the revolutions in France, Belgium and Greece.

In 1848, a series of liberal revolutions swept through Europe, beginning in France.

Another French Revolution

An economic recession in France, beginning in 1846, brought great hardship to the working classes.

One third of the workers in Paris were unemployed by the end of 1847.

Louis Philippe’s scandal ridden government continued to refuse to make reforms, such as the expansion of suffrage to the middle class.

Political opposition to Louis-Philippe’s government began to grow under the leadership of Adolphe Thiers.

Since political rallies were illegal, liberals used banquets to call for reforms.

When the government outlawed the Grand Banquet in February of 1848, the barricades went up again in the city of Paris.

The rebellion forced Louis-Philippe to abdicate by the end of February and he fled the country.

The Provisional Government

A provisional government was created including such radical liberals as the Utopian Socialist Louis Blanc.

The new government called for a national assembly to create a new constitution based on universal manhood suffrage.

The National Workshops

Blanc helped establish a worker’s unemployment compensation program called National Workshops.

The program quickly became a major economic burden to the government.

General Elections

The elections were a repudiation of the radical republicans who only gained 100 out of the 800 seats in the Assembly.

The cost of the National Workshops led the moderates to close them down in June.

The June Days

The closing of the workshops led to riots in the streets, which took on an air of class warfare, with the lower class workers attacking the middle class bourgeoisie.

The street fighting was ended after four days of bloodshed – thousands were killed and 11,000 prisoners were deported to Algeria in Africa.

The Second Republic

The new constitution was ratified in November of 1848 – creating a unicameral legislature of 750 members elected by universal manhood suffrage.

A president was to be elected for four years – also by universal manhood suffrage.

President Bonaparte

The winner of the presidential election was Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Within four years President Bonaparte would become Emperor Napoleon III.

Revolutions in Central Europe

News of the revolution in France caused an explosion of rebellion throughout Central Europe.

German Rebellions

Workers destroyed the textile machinery they thought were stealing their jobs.

Peasants looted and burned the manor houses of nobility in Germany.

The revolts led many German rulers to begin liberal reforms.

Prussian King Frederick William IV abolished censorship and agreed to a new constitution and to work towards the unification of Germany.

The Frankfurt Assembly

The German states each sent representatives elected by universal manhood suffrage to an all-German Parliament to meet in Frankfurt with purpose of creating a constitution for a united Germany.

The mostly upper middle class assembly declared itself to be the government of all of Germany then broke down in controversy over the composition of the new German state.

Big Germany vs. Small Germany

Supporters of a Grossdeutsch wanted a “big” Germany which would include the German provinces of Austria.

The Kleindeutsch favored excluding Austria and making the Prussian King the Emperor of Germany.

He would not “stoop to the gutter” to accept "a crown made of mud and clay."

The problem was solved when Austria withdrew but the Kleindeutsch solution failed as well when Prussian King Frederick William IV refused to be Emperor and disbanded the assembly.

The Hungarian Revolt

News of the French revolt led to a Nationalist uprising in Hungary against the Hapsburgs of Austria.

The upper middle class Hungarians, led by Louis Kossuth, sought to gain “commonwealth” status within the Austria Empire.

Metternich’s Downfall

Violent riots in Vienna, Budapest and Prague led to the dismissal of Metternich, who then fled into exile abroad.

ViennaRevolutionaries in

Vienna seized the capital and called for the election of a national assembly.

The new liberal government agreed to Hungary’s demands a separate assembly, national army and semi-autonomy.

The Czechs in Bohemia then began to call for their own government.

Conservative Backlash

The conservatives played on the fears of the middle class of class warfare and used the army to brutally crush the Czech uprising.

In October 1848, the Minister of War was killed by a mob in Vienna.

The Army now moved on Vienna and by December the radicals had been crushed and the Emperor Ferdinand I had abdicated in favor of his brother Francis Joseph I – who would rule until 1916.

Crushing the Hungarian Revolt.

The Austrian armies, aided by 140,000 Russian troops sent by Tsar Nicholas I, were able to crush the Hungarian revolt in 1849.

The Austrian revolution failed and the conservative, autocratic government continued to rule.

Revolts in Italy.

The leader of Italy’s Risorgimento (resurgence) movement was Giuseppe Mazzini, the founder of the Nationalist organization Young Italy.

Mazzini was involved with the Carbonari secret societies but quit and became a leading advocate of nationalism in Europe.

Liberal rebellions broke out all over Italy in 1848, beginning in Sicily and soon spreading throughout the peninsula.

Lombardy and Venice broke from Austria and became a republic.

Rome was taken from the Vatican and was declared a republic with Mazzini as its leader.

The King of Piedmont led an army against the Austrians, but failed in his invasion of Lombardy.

The Failures of 1848

The liberal governments were short lived and by 1849 Austria had regained its Italian territories

The French sent an army to liberate Rome, which under the leadership of Giuseppi Garibaldi, was able to hold out for 30 days against overwhelming odds.

In the end only Piedmont kept its liberal constitution.

Why were the liberal revolts so successful at first but then failed so quickly?

Order rules the day…

The unity that brought about the success of the revolts was quickly lost to ideological fighting over the degree of democratic reform.

Concern over property rights led many moderate middle class liberal to pull back from the radicals over the issue of universal manhood suffrage.

A failure over autonomy

Nationalists such as the Hungarians that fought for their own independence refused to agree to the independence of groups such as the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs.

The Austrians were able to play one national group against the other.