The Revolutions of 1848 summaries

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The Revolutions of 1848 summaries

The Revolutions of 1848 (1848)

Summary
Beginning shortly after the New Year in 1848, Europe exploded into revolution. From Paris to Frankfurt to Budapest to Naples, liberal protesters rose up against the conservative establishment. To those living through the cataclysmic year, it seemed rather sudden; however, hindsight offers valuable warning signs.
The year 1846 witnessed a severe famine--Europe's last serious food crisis. Lack of grain drove up food and other prices while wages remained stagnant, thus reducing consumer demand. With consumers buying less and less, profits plummeted, forcing thousands of industrial workers out of their jobs. High unemployment combined with high prices sparked the liberal revolt. The subsequent events in February 1848 in France made Austria's Prince Clemens von Metternich's saying seem true: "When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold."
Moderate liberals--lawyers, doctors, merchants, bourgeoisie--began pushing actively for extension of suffrage through their "banquet campaign," named thus because its leaders attempted to raise money by giving rousing speeches at subscribed dinners in France's major urban areas. When on February 22, 1848, Paris officials canceled the scheduled banquet, fearing organized protest by the middle and working classes, Parisian citizens demonstrated against the repression. Skilled workers, factory laborers, and middle class liberals poured into the streets. The National Guard, a citizen militia of bourgeois Parisians, defected from King Louis-Philippe, and the army garrison stationed in Paris joined the revolutionary protesters as well. Louis-Philippe attempted reform, but the workers rejected the halfhearted changes. The king fled and the demonstrators proclaimed the Second Republic on February 24th.
The overthrow of the monarchy set off a wave of protest throughout east and central Europe, led by radical liberals and workers who demanded constitutional reform or complete government change. In March, protests in the German provinces brought swift reform from local princes while Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia yielded to revolts in Berlin by promising to create a Prussian assembly. The collapse of autocracy in Prussia encouraged liberals in the divided Germany provinces to join together at the Frankfurt Assembly to frame a constitution and unite the German nation. Meeting in May 1848, the convention was populated by middle class civil servants, lawyers, and intellectuals dedicated to liberal reform. However, after drawing the boundaries for a German state and offering the crown to Friedrich Wilhelm, the Kaiser refused in March 1849, dooming hopes for a united, liberal Germany.
In Austria, students, workers, and middle class liberals revolted in Vienna, setting up a constituent assembly. In Budapest, the Magyars led a movement of national autonomy, led by patriot Lajos Kossuth. Similarly, in Prague, the Czechs revolted in the name of self-government. In Italy, new constitutions were declared in Tuscany and Piedmont, with the goal of overthrowing their Austrian masters. Here, middle class liberals pushed the concept of Italian unification alongside the defeat of the Austrians with the help of the Young Italy movement, founded in 1831 by nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian patriot who favored a democratic revolution to unify the country. In February 1849, Mazzini led a democratic revolt against the Pope in Rome, becoming head of the Republic of Rome later that month. By attacking the Pope, the democrats went too far. The self-proclaimed protectors of the Pope, the French, moved in and defeated Mazzini's Roman legion. The Pope was restored and a democratic Italy collapsed, for now.
Meanwhile, from August 1848, the Austrian army soundly defeated every revolt in its empire. In Vienna, in Budapest, in Prague, the Austrians legions crushed the liberal and democratic movements, returning the empire to the conservative establishment that ruled at the beginning of 1848. Nothing had come of the revolutions of 1848.
Commentary
The revolutions of 1848 were a "turning point in modern history that modern history failed to turn." Every one was an utter failure; though minor reforms emerged in the Germany provinces and in Prussia, the conservative regimes that canvassed Europe remained in power.
Though utter failures themselves, the 1848 revolutions inspire much more discussion. Consider the following four points:
The year 1848 marked the end of the so-called "concert of Europe" that had been defined after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 as a way to maintain the European balance of power by having the continent's major powers meet to resolve their differences and prevent aggression. After 1848, the European powers seemed incapable of united action to maintain the status quo, probably because the revolutions of 1848 weakened the regimes in the eyes of their people. Secondly, the revolutions failed to bring about any significant change. In France, the December 1848 presidential election brought Louis Napoleon, nephew of the former emperor, into office; it took him less than three years to consolidate absolute power. In Austria, a new emperor, Franz Josef I, continued Austrian dominance over all the minorities of eastern Europe. In Prussia, the promised assembly had little power and was constituted by the aristocratic elite.
The final two points emerge from here: 1) Why did the revolutions fail? and 2) why was it so easy for conservative forces to return? The revolutions probably failed due to lack of organization. In Austria, for example, the revolts in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest maintained no communication among them, allowing the Austrian army to attend to each in isolation, without a united front. Finally, the return of conservative and reactionary forces was probably due to the middle class. Another reason why the revolutions failed was because moderate liberals of the middle class feared the radicalism of the workers, preventing any type of lasting alliance. Therefore, when radicals took control of the revolutions in Paris and in eastern Europe, the middle class liberals turned their backs, preferring absolute rule and law and order, to the uncertainty of radical revolution.

1848 Revolution: Paris

Summary
In France, Louis Philippe's government remained a bourgeoisie-dominated affair, disappointing to the workers who had manned the barricades in 1830. Only a thirtieth of adult males could vote, and Louis Philippe staunchly opposed enlarging the voting base. Popular discontent finally resulted in the February Revolution of 1848. The working classes again put barricades up in the streets, and an unruly Paris mob frightened Louis Philippe into abdicating. The Radical Republicans then managed to get the provisional government to pass socialist programs. This included the creation of National Workshops, which were centralized, state-owned manufacturing establishments where workers would be guaranteed work. In the National Workshops, however, there wasn't any real work for the workers to do, since the government did not take their establishment very seriously. The National Workshops, promising employment, soon became jam- packed with thousands of discontented workers, fermenting still more agitation. In May, the military turned against the lower class agitators. In late June, three days of especially violent class warfare broke out in Paris. The army soon restored order, but the political landscape had changed.
After June 1848, the French began to draw up a new constitution. The constitution included provisions for a strong president, who would be elected via universal male suffrage (all adult males would vote). Four candidates entered the election, which was the first election most of the uneducated, newly enfranchised voters had ever experienced as active participants. The most ambiguous candidate was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I's nephew. He had no real platform, and few knew his leanings. He merely said that his uncle, Napoleon, had been liberal, and that he would be liberal. Since the name Bonaparte still resonated so strongly among the general population of France, Louis Napoleon won the election over the other, more experienced candidates.
Though claiming to be liberal, the newly elected President was mostly interested in reestablishing order. After gaining support by promising universal male suffrage, he promptly got rid of socialists in the government. He encouraged religious influence in school teaching, and then, after becoming confident of his support base, he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. The revolution in France ended with a new government, but once again a new dictator.
Like the July Revolution of 1830, the February Revolution of 1848 reverberated throughout Europe, resulting in a series of revolutions, most powerfully in Germany and Vienna. In Britain, the French upheaval revived the Chartist Movement. In London, however, no barricades went up in London's streets. Instead, a new petition went to Parliament.
Commentary
The years from 1815 to 1848, although free of major wars, were the site of a different conflict, between Reaction and Revolution. As 1848 approached, Revolution had been brewing, but the Reactionary forces led by Metternich had been successful in preventing any major revolutionary "disasters." The boundaries established by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, if a little worse for the wear, remained for the most part standing by the opening of 1848.
There have not been many years like 1848, for 1848 was the ultimate year of Revolution throughout Europe. The Revolutionary forces made a concerted push throughout the continent in even greater force than in 1830. Among the major European powers, only Great Britain, where some reforms had blunted the wrath of the working class, and Russia, where the monarchy still held firm control, escaped from 1848 without undergoing a revolution. Was the simultaneity of the revolutions a product of an international conspiracy? Probably not, though the revolutionary groups throughout Europe were transnational and did communicate. More likely, Metternich's hypothesis that revolution could spread from one country to another was proven true. Revolution in Paris served as the signal for revolutions throughout Europe.
In France itself, the February Revolution's radical socialist changes were doomed from the start. Outside of Paris, the people in the countryside (the majority of France) were much more conservative than the workers in the city, and were generally anti-socialist. After the Paris reformers went beyond what the country was willing to accept, it was only a matter of time before their revolutionary changes were reversed. Furthermore, by 1848 France had had so many governments in the past 50 years that new governments were easy to bring down. This was very much unlike Britain, whose government had been so stable for so long that discontented people were hesitant to overthrow it, merely because it had such a long tradition behind it. In Britain, reforms would pass gradually within the system rather than by violent rebellions.
Regarding the Paris barricades, it is interesting to note that an angry mob of civilians really could stand up against the French army. Today, in the age of tanks, civilians have no real hope fighting against tanks, bombs, and rocket- launchers. In 1848, however, there were no tanks, and the army's victory over the Paris mob was no sure thing. Throughout Europe, rulers were tremendously frightened by the revolution in Paris. To many in the upper classes, it seemed as though civilization itself might be crumbling.

1848 Revolutions: The Austrian Empire

Summary
Vienna, the capital of the ethnically diverse Austrian Empire, was a leading cultural center in Europe. Full of artists, composers, writers, and intellectuals, Vienna was truly the jewel of the Austrian Empire, and the Austrian empire, led by Metternich, was the paragon of reactionary politics. Yet the various ethnic groups in Austria had become increasingly nationalist over the preceding decades, and by now they all yearned to express their individual volksgeist and gain independence. Metternich had worked for years to hold the Austrian Empire together, but now, in the wake of the French February Revolution, the ethnic groups vehemently opposed assimilation.
In March 1848, a radical Hungarian Magyar group led by Louis Kossuth began a vocal independence movement. Kossuth's fiery speeches were soon printed in Vienna, where they started a sensation and soon an uprising. Metternich, monitoring the Revolutions throughout Europe, had become fearful. He decided to flee, and quickly snuck out of Vienna. The situation probably wasn't as bad as he thought, but once news got out that Metternich had left, the Austrian revolutionaries got truly excited. Austrian Czechs and numerous Austrian controlled Italian states followed the Magyars lead. Some of the revolutionary excitement also spilled into Prussia, where, to ease the pressure, the Prussian King Frederick William IV promised a constitution. On March 15, Kossuth's Hungary was granted independence under Hapsburg rule. The Czech movement in Bohemia soon received the same status, and Italian states like Milan soon overthrew Austrian occupation.
In June 1848, the revolutions in Austria began to run out of steam. After all, it was a non-industrialized country that did not have a well-developed middle class. Their revolution, largely led by intellectuals and students, could not marshal the same amount of popular support as the bourgeoisie in Western Europe.
In June 1848, in Prague, a group of Slavic nationalists held a Pan-Slavism conference in an attempt to stop Bohemia from being swallowed by Germany. The conference soon became violent. Emperor Ferdinand of Austria smashed the Prague insurrection using the army, and he also sent his forces against the rebellious Italian states of Lombardy and Milan, which were soon reconquered. In September and October of 1848, Louis Kossuth started a movement to make Magyar the official language of Hungary, even though only half of the population of Hungary spoke Magyar. The Serbo-Croatians, who did not speak the Magyar language, rebelled and asked the Hapsburgs for help. In December, another rebellion in Vienna led Emperor Ferdinand to abdicate, putting his son, Franz Joseph, into power. Franz Joseph quickly appealed to the Russians, who marched into Hungary and crushed the Magyars. The 1848 revolutions in Austria came to an end, restoring order in the Empire.
Commentary
The Austrian Empire was very large in 1848, and filled with around a dozen ethnicities, each with its own language. In some areas, certain ethnic groups dominated, while in other areas, other groups dominated. Austria itself had a German majority, while the Magyars were the predominant ethnicity in Hungary. Czechs dominated Bohemia, and various groups of Slavs made up most of the remaining population of the Empire.
With the first spark, these separate nationalist ethnicities exploded. However, like France, after a moment of nationalist promise the revolutions of 1848 soon dissolved or were crushed. The big weakness of the Austrian revolutionaries lay in the structure of Austrian society. Unlike Britain and France, with its large middle class buoyed by industrialized wealth and its urban working class, Austria had no well-developed middle class. The Austrian revolutions, particularly in Vienna, therefore had no powerful support base. The students and intellectuals couldn't sway the illiterate and rural peasants who had no notion of nationalism and who primarily made up the army. The army thus stayed loyal to the Hapsburgs and helped to suppress the revolution. With Vienna intact, the Hapsburgs were able to move out through their empire and reconquer it, with the help of the Russians.
With all of the revolutions suppressed, Austria became an even more autocratic state. While the other European countries were generally moved towards change by the revolutions of 1848, Austria's Reactionary state, even with the fall of Metternich, became even more conservative and repressive.
Incidentally, during the revolutions of 1848, a small nationalist German minority in Bohemia, in the area called the Sudetenland, made clear their desire to become a part of Germany. Though of minor significance in 1848, this desire would become important almost a century later when the Germans seized it as their ostensible reason for annexing the Sudetenland at the beginning of World War II.

Germany and Prussia in 1848

Summary
Prussia
In Prussia, the old king, Frederick William III, had always been opposed to giving the Prussian people a constitution. Frederick William IV, who was generally as weak and unskilled as his father, similarly feared giving the people a constitution. However, the success of Prussia in the last few decades had been almost entirely due to the skilled group of bureaucrats and administrators serving the government, and all of these administrators were pushing hard for a constitutional monarchy.
In March 1848, rioting began in Berlin, as the 1848 revolution fever crossed from Austria into Prussia. Frederick William IV quickly mobilized the disciplined Prussian army to suppress the revolution. However, he surprised everyone by taking a liberal stance and allowing an election to take place to elect a Prussian assembly. The elected radical revolutionaries wanted to unite Prussia with all of Germany to create a force that could challenge Russia. The Assembly also desired to grant the Polish minorities living in eastern Prussia a right of self-government. Deciding that the experiment in democratic government had gone on long enough, Frederick William IV changed his mind and dissolved the Prussian Assembly.
Germany
The 1848 revolutions inspired a similar nationalist movement in Germany proper. In May 1848, a group of German nationalists met at the Frankfurt Assembly. The goals of the assembly included creating a unified Germany that was Liberal and constitutionally governed. The Frankfurt assembly argued over various topics, including the question of who (the Prussian or Austrian ruler?) should rule a unified Germany.
In December of 1848, the Frankfurt Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of the German People, based on the Declarations of the Rights of Man in France and the Declaration of Independence in the United States. Following the Nationalist rather than Enlightenment ideal, this declaration ignored the universal rights of all mankind and simply proclaimed the rights of Germans.
In 1849, the Frankfurt Assembly offered Germany to Frederick William IV. Though he coveted the territory, Frederick William knew that an acceptance would lead to war with Austria and make him into a constitutional monarch, neither of which he desired. He turned the offer down. Thus, all the deliberation of the Frankfurt Assembly resulted in nothing. Germany remained fragmented after 1848, and the small rulers of the various small German states came back to power.
Commentary
Wanting to maintain the power they held within the loose confederation of the Bund, the leaders of the small German states staunchly opposed revolution. Furthermore, Prussia and Austria, who combined to dominate Germany, liked a weak Germany, primarily because they feared the possibility of a united, powerful Germany on their borders.
The Frankfurt Assembly consisted of a fairly bland group of liberal German professionals. They were not particularly fiery revolutionaries, and were essentially unwilling to consider violent revolution. The German bourgeoisie involved in the Frankfurt Assembly failed to unite broad lower-class support in Germany. Instead of harnessing the power of lower-class discontent, the Frankfurt Assembly made the mistake of alienating the lower classes, and this anti-proletariat attitude doomed the Frankfurt Assembly from the start. When lower-class riots did break out in Germany, the Frankfurt Assembly did its best to stop them. Furthermore, the Frankfurt Assembly was plagued by difficult questions that it could not resolve. Its members debated whether Germany should contain only the Bund, or also include parts of Austria or Prussia. The ownership of Schleswig-Holstein, officially the property of Denmark, was another contentious issue. Roughly split between a German and a Danish population, the Frankfurt Assembly wanted to annex Schleswig-Holstein, hoping to call on Prussia for help. However, they also knew that Russia and Great Britain would team up against Prussia if it tried to take over Schleswig-Holstein.
In many ways, the Frankfurt Assembly can be seen as indicative of the larger context of 1848. Just as the Frankfurt Assembly was dominated by various minor squabbles, the 1848 revolutions were filled with many nationalist groups, all of whom had different visions of the future of Europe. Further, just as the Frankfurt Assembly disappeared with a whimper, turned down by the man it had selected as ruler of a unified Germany, so too did the revolutions of 1848 generally lead to little change: France was ruled by an Emperor, Austria was more autocratic than ever, and Germany remained a patchwork of minor states. But the ideas animating the revolutions did not die with the revolutions themselves. Though the Frankfurt assembly ended in a sort of wounded embarrassment, the desire to unify Germany remained strong, as did nationalism everywhere. The year of revolutions yielded little result, but in the following years the nationalist impulse to unify would take on greater proportions, and the years between 1848 and 1871 could easily be termed an age of unification.
Further, in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto. Although the work did not greatly influence the revolutions of the time, its authors were themselves influenced by the events of that year and the context of that period. Future revolutions would begin to incorporate the ideology Marx and Engels developed, an ideology tempered by battle between reactionaries and revolutionaries in the years from 1815 to 1848.

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The Revolutions of 1848 summaries

Europe - The Revolutions of 1848

Summary

Beginning shortly after the New Year in 1848, Europe exploded into revolution. From Paris to Frankfurt to Budapest to Naples, liberal protesters rose up against the conservative establishment. To those living through the cataclysmic year, it seemed rather sudden; however, hindsight offers valuable warning signs.

The year 1846 witnessed a severe famine--Europe's last serious food crisis. Lack of grain drove up food and other prices while wages remained stagnant, thus reducing consumer demand. With consumers buying less and less, profits plummeted, forcing thousands of industrial workers out of their jobs. High unemployment combined with high prices sparked the liberal revolt. The subsequent events in February 1848 in France made Austria's Prince Clemens von Metternich's saying seem true: "When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold."

France (again)
Moderate liberals--lawyers, doctors, merchants, bourgeoisie--began pushing actively for extension of suffrage through their "banquet campaign," named thus because its leaders attempted to raise money by giving rousing speeches at subscribed dinners in France's major urban areas. When on February 22, 1848, Paris officials canceled the scheduled banquet, fearing organized protest by the middle and working classes, Parisian citizens demonstrated against the repression. Skilled workers, factory laborers, and middle class liberals poured into the streets. The National Guard, a citizen militia of bourgeois Parisians, defected from King Louis-Philippe, and the army garrison stationed in Paris joined the revolutionary protesters as well. Louis-Philippe attempted reform, but the workers rejected the halfhearted changes. The king fled and the demonstrators proclaimed the Second Republic on February 24th.

The overthrow of the monarchy set off a wave of protest throughout east and central Europe, led by radical liberals and workers who demanded constitutional reform or complete government change. In March, protests in the German provinces brought swift reform from local princes while Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia yielded to revolts in Berlin by promising to create a Prussian assembly. The collapse of autocracy in Prussia encouraged liberals in the divided Germany provinces to join together at the Frankfurt Assembly to frame a constitution and unite the German nation. Meeting in May 1848, the convention was populated by middle class civil servants, lawyers, and intellectuals dedicated to liberal reform. However, after drawing the boundaries for a German state and offering the crown to Friedrich Wilhelm, the Kaiser refused in March 1849, dooming hopes for a united, liberal Germany.

Austria
In Austria, students, workers, and middle class liberals revolted in Vienna, setting up a constituent assembly. In Budapest, the Magyars led a movement of national autonomy, led by patriot Lajos Kossuth. Similarly, in Prague, the Czechs revolted in the name of self-government.

Italy
In Italy, new constitutions were declared in Tuscany and Piedmont, with the goal of overthrowing their Austrian masters. Here, middle class liberals pushed the concept of Italian unification alongside the defeat of the Austrians with the help of the Young Italy movement, founded in 1831 by nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian patriot who favored a democratic revolution to unify the country. In February 1849, Mazzini led a democratic revolt against the Pope in Rome, becoming head of the Republic of Rome later that month. By attacking the Pope, the democrats went too far. The self-proclaimed protectors of the Pope, the French, moved in and defeated Mazzini's Roman legion. The Pope was restored and a democratic Italy collapsed, for now.

Meanwhile, from August 1848, the Austrian army soundly defeated every revolt in its empire. In Vienna, in Budapest, in Prague, the Austrians legions crushed the liberal and democratic movements, returning the empire to the conservative establishment that ruled at the beginning of 1848. Nothing had come of the revolutions of 1848.

Commentary

The revolutions of 1848 were a "turning point in modern history that modern history failed to turn." Every one was an utter failure; though minor reforms emerged in the Germany provinces and in Prussia, the conservative regimes that canvassed Europe remained in power.

Though utter failures themselves, the 1848 revolutions inspire much more discussion. Consider the following four points:

The year 1848 marked the end of the so-called "concert of Europe" that had been defined after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 as a way to maintain the European balance of power by having the continent's major powers meet to resolve their differences and prevent aggression. After 1848, the European powers seemed incapable of united action to maintain the status quo, probably because the revolutions of 1848 weakened the regimes in the eyes of their people. Secondly, the revolutions failed to bring about any significant change. In France, the December 1848 presidential election brought Louis Napoleon, nephew of the former emperor, into office; it took him less than three years to consolidate absolute power. In Austria, a new emperor, Franz Josef I, continued Austrian dominance over all the minorities of eastern Europe. In Prussia, the promised assembly had little power and was constituted by the aristocratic elite.

The final two points emerge from here: 1) Why did the revolutions fail? and 2) why was it so easy for conservative forces to return? The revolutions probably failed due to lack of organization. In Austria, for example, the revolts in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest maintained no communication among them, allowing the Austrian army to attend to each in isolation, without a united front. Finally, the return of conservative and reactionary forces was probably due to the middle class. Another reason why the revolutions failed was because moderate liberals of the middle class feared the radicalism of the workers, preventing any type of lasting alliance. Therefore, when radicals took control of the revolutions in Paris and in eastern Europe, the middle class liberals turned their backs, preferring absolute rule and law and order, to the uncertainty of radical revolution.

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The Revolutions of 1848 summaries

19th Century Europe

Europe (1815-1848)

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Era, Europe's leaders worked to reorganize Europe and create a stable balance of power. After that Congress, The Austrian diplomat Metternich would call several more congresses to try and preserve European stability: the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), the Congress of Troppau (1820), and the Congress of Verona (1822). The Congress System that Metternich established was Reactionary, that is, its goal was to preserve the power of the old, monarchical regimes in Europe.

Revolution was brewing, however. In Britain, the Industrial Revolution continued to accelerate, causing economic transformations that had serious political and social implications. All across Europe, and especially in France and Britain, the rising Bourgeoisie class challenged the old monarchical Reactionaries with their Liberal ideology. "Isms" abounded. Ideologies such as Radicalism, Republicanism, and Socialism rounded into coherent form. In response to events like the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, worker consciousness of a class struggle between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie began to emerge. The Bourgeoisie was clearly the ascendant class between 1815 and 1848; the Proletariat began to gain a sense of similar unification.

Another "Ism" coming into its own at this time was Romanticism, the intellectual response to the French Enlightenment rationalism and emphasis on Reason. At the same time, Romantic thinkers, artists, and writers posed powerful challenge to the Enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and reason. Such artists and philosophers as Herder, Hegel, Schiller, Schinckel, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats, William Wordsworth, and Delacroix, to name a few, achieved remarkable intellectual and artistic heights and gained a wide following throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, Prussia, England, and to a lesser extent France.

Of all the "Isms" competing in this period, perhaps the greatest was Nationalism, an ideology, like Romanticism, which reacted against the Universalist claims of French enlightenment thought. Whereas Romanticism often focused on intellectual and artistic matters, Nationalism, which proclaimed the unique character of ethnic and linguistic groups, was more overtly political. The Nationalist movements in Germany and Italy, which involved an effort at national unification, and those in the Austrian Empire, which involved efforts to carve the Austrian Empire into ethnically or linguistically defined states, created a great amount of instability in Europe.

In 1830, the various ideological beliefs resulted in a round of revolutions. These revolutions began when the Paris Mob, manipulated by the interests of the Bourgeoisie, deposed the Bourbon monarchy of Charles X and replaced him with Louis Philippe. In the rest of Europe, the French example touched off various nationalist revolts; all were successfully quelled by conservative forces.

Britain notably escaped any outbreak of violence, but it by no means escaped change: the battle between the formerly dominant landed aristocracy and the newly ascendant manufacturers led to the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, which partially remedied the Rotten Boroughs and gave the manufactures an increased amount of Parliamentary representation. The working class benefited from the growing class rivalry between aristocracy and middle-class. Often the aristocrats would ally with the working class to act against the manufacturers, forcing the manufacturers, in turn, to ally with the workers against the aristocrats. Although the working class did not yet have the vote in England, they were pushing for universal adult male suffrage in the late 1830s and early 1840s via the Chartist Movement. While this movement failed in the short- term, its demands were eventually adopted.

In the rest of Europe, political change would not happen so peacefully. In 1848, the February Revolution broke out in Paris, toppling Louis Philippe and granting universal suffrage to adult French men, who elected Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) solely on name-recognition. Europe once again took its cue from Paris, and revolutions broke out nearly everywhere in Europe during 1848. Rebellion in Germany led to the establishment of the Frankfurt Assembly, which was plagued by internal squabbling and was unable to unify Germany. In the Austrian Empire, the various ethnicities revolted, and the Magyar nationalists led by Louis Kossuth pushed for an independent Hungary. Rioting in Vienna frightened Metternich so much he fled the city. All of the Eastern European rebellions were ultimately put down, a triumph for the reactionaries. However, the events of 1848 frightened the rulers of Europe out of their complacency and forced them to realize that gradually, they would have to change the nature of their governments or face future revolutions.

The Revolutions of 1848 (1848)

Summary

Moderate liberals--lawyers, doctors, merchants, bourgeoisie--began pushing actively for extension of suffrage through their "banquet campaign," named thus because its leaders attempted to raise money by giving rousing speeches at subscribed dinners in France's major urban areas. When on February 22, 1848, Paris officials canceled the scheduled banquet, fearing organized protest by the middle and working classes, Parisian citizens demonstrated against the repression. Skilled workers, factory laborers, and middle class liberals poured into the streets. The National Guard, a citizen militia of bourgeois Parisians, defected from King Louis-Philippe, and the army garrison stationed in Paris joined the revolutionary protesters as well. Louis-Philippe attempted reform, but the workers rejected the halfhearted changes. The king fled and the demonstrators proclaimed the Second Republic on February 24th.

In Austria, students, workers, and middle class liberals revolted in Vienna, setting up a constituent assembly. In Budapest, the Magyars led a movement of national autonomy, led by patriot Lajos Kossuth. Similarly, in Prague, the Czechs revolted in the name of self-government. In Italy, new constitutions were declared in Tuscany and Piedmont, with the goal of overthrowing their Austrian masters. Here, middle class liberals pushed the concept of Italian unification alongside the defeat of the Austrians with the help of the Young Italy movement, founded in 1831 by nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian patriot who favored a democratic revolution to unify the country. In February 1849, Mazzini led a democratic revolt against the Pope in Rome, becoming head of the Republic of Rome later that month. By attacking the Pope, the democrats went too far. The self-proclaimed protectors of the Pope, the French, moved in and defeated Mazzini's Roman legion. The Pope was restored and a democratic Italy collapsed, for now.

Conclusions

The revolutions of 1848 were a "turning point in modern history that modern history failed to turn." Everyone was an utter failure; though minor reforms emerged in the Germany provinces and in Prussia, the conservative regimes that canvassed Europe remained in power.

Though utter failures themselves, the 1848 revolutions inspire much more discussion. Consider the following points:

The year 1848 marked the end of the so-called "concert of Europe" that had been defined after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 as a way to maintain the European balance of power by having the continent's major powers meet to resolve their differences and prevent aggression. After 1848, the European powers seemed incapable of united action to maintain the status quo, probably because the revolutions of 1848 weakened the regimes in the eyes of their people. Secondly, the revolutions failed to bring about any significant change. In France, the December 1848 presidential election brought Louis Napoleon, nephew of the former emperor, into office; it took him less than three years to consolidate absolute power. In Austria, a new emperor, Franz Josef I, continued Austrian dominance over all the minorities of Eastern Europe. In Prussia, the promised assembly had little power and was constituted by the aristocratic elite.

The final two points emerge from here: 1) why did the revolutions fail? And 2) why was it so easy for conservative forces to return? The revolutions probably failed due to lack of organization. In Austria, for example, the revolts in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest maintained no communication among them, allowing the Austrian army to attend to each in isolation, without a united front. Finally, the return of conservative and reactionary forces was probably due to the middle class. Another reason why the revolutions failed was because moderate liberals of the middle class feared the radicalism of the workers, preventing any type of lasting alliance. Therefore, when radicals took control of the revolutions in Paris and in Eastern Europe, the middle class liberals turned their backs, preferring absolute rule and law and order, to the uncertainty of radical revolution.

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The Revolutions of 1848 summaries