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The revolution of 1848
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The projected Pan-Slav Congress convened, as arranged, in
Prague in early June. The proceedings of this Congress were held in the Czech National Museum where they were
sub-divided into a section involving Poles and Ruthenes, one
involving Czechs and Slovaks, and one involving Croats, Serbs and
Slovenes. This Pan Slav Congress functioned as a more or less
conscious counter-blast to the German National Assembly stressing
support for the equality of nations and the continuation of
several Slav peoples existence within the Austrian Empire - its outlook was
in favour of Slavic Revival and of resistance to cultural assimilationism be it German or Hungarian.
The opening speech at this congress was delivered by Pavel Jozef Šafárik, a Slovak who had been living in Prague for a number of years, who was a friend of Palacký's and who earnt his living as an academic, as an editor, and as a librarian alongside having some notability for his studies into Slavic languages. In this speech, which was well-received by the delegates to the Congress, Šafárik claimed that in declining to become Germans, Italians or Magyars, the Slavs were not acting as barbarians, but simply refusing to betray their country or the cause of liberty. "The Slavs ask nothing but justice; they rest upon moral force only....It is only by struggle that we pass from slavery to liberty. Let us therefore be victors, and we shall be free in a free nation, or let us die with honour, and glory will follow us to the grave." The Congress held several sessions between 2-12 June 1848. A passage from the Manifesto issued by the Pan-Slav Congress reads:-On 12th June there was some rioting in Prague between radical and conservative interests that was followed several days later by the active deployment of the forces under the command of the local Austrian commander, General Windischgrätz, whose wife had been fatally wounded in the disturbances of the 12th, and a revival of Austrian administrative control after five days of conflict. In many cases moderate persons, seeing the behaviour of those involved in rioting in Prague as being excessive, tended away from support for unpredictable change and toward support for traditional authority.
These National Workshops included the provision of employment in novel public works schemes like the weaving of 43,000 flags in Lyon or the numerous municipal construction projects, some of these had a creative purpose: work on the Montparnasse station, on the Orsay train line, landscaping etc. In many cases those in employment in Paris felt able to agitate for higher wages from their existing employers in the belief that they could fall back upon the public purse via the National Workshops. Several tens of thousands of persons from outside Paris, also distressed by the scarcity of employment, migrated to Paris in the hope of learning some trade or of taking advantage of the new provisions. As those registered with the National Workshops increased in number the hours available per person became limited but those involved were able to draw a salary of inactivity for days on which there was no work available. A labour commission headed up by Louis Blanc and Albert sought to reduce the working day from fifteen to ten hours in Paris and from fifteen to eleven hours in the provinces. Direct taxation was actually raised significantly bringing further difficulties to persons who were already finding their incomes under pressure due to the ongoing weakness of the economy. Such developments as the National Workshops scheme and the reduction of the working day gave some scope for taxpayers, including many rural peasant proprietors, to feel that they were being squeezed to provide unreasonable levels of support to people who were not working as hard as might be expected towards earning their own living. French National Assembly elections of April 23rd based on universal suffrage produced a relatively conservative outcome where the small number of deputies in favour of Republicanism and Socialism were heavily outnumbered by a factor of five to one. In mid May some twenty thousand persons protested in the streets of Paris that not enough was being done by the new French administration to secure liberties in Poland. Some three thousand of these were able to access the chamber where the newly elected National Assembly was holding its processes of deliberation. Whilst in the Assembly chamber the protestors also condemned a recent forcible quelling of radicalism in the French city of Rouen - some voices were raised suggesting that the new government was betraying the people. After the National Guard subsequently cleared the protestors from the chamber radical elements decided that they should attempt to establish an alternative to the elected government that would pursue their preferred radical policies. Although several hundred protestors seized control of the City Hall, from which would-be "governmental" decrees were issued, the National Guard again intervened and several of the radicals leaders were arrested and detained. The events of this day in May tended to give rise to concern among many moderates, across France, about the potential for more instances of disruptive social revolution. In late May the authorities, with approaching one hundred thousand persons enrolled in the work schemes, began to place restrictions on them. On 21st June the administration moved to close down the work schemes. Young men were offered the deeply unattractive alternative of joining the French army. Others were offered an opportunity of participating in the draining of the (notoriously unhealthy!!!) swamplands of the Sologne region of the Loire valley. Persons originally from outside Paris who had enrolled themselves in the work schemes were to be cut off from membership and were offered expenses to return to their home districts. On 23rd June barricades were set up widely over the poorer areas of eastern Paris by workers made desperate by the closure of the National Workshops, (which had been their only means of subsistence).
A General Cavignac, who had played a prominent role in combatting radicalism during the "June Days", was invited by the assembly to continue with the exercise of sweeping powers until a new constitution was in place. In their efforts to secure social peace in Paris the authorities arranged, by a law of 19 September, for the emigration of several thousand workers, with their families, to colonial north Africa as agricultural settlers. A budget of 50 million francs, an enormous sum for those days, spread over several years, was put in place to fund the programme Over the months of his authority, however, General Cavignac showed limited capacity for government and for the winning of political support. In the event people increasingly began to be attracted by the personality and policies of one Louis Napoleon, who had been raised as a nephew of the former Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who had long lived in exile but had been given approval to return to France in June 1848 and who had actually been elected to the Assembly. French public opinion, long supportive of extensions of French political, cultural, and military, influence had recently been moved by the works of Thiers and others celebrating the achievements of the Napoleonic era. Louis Napoleon stood for election as President of the Republic - an office which, under the constitution of the republic, was to continue over a four year term. In this campaign Louis Napoleon espoused policies that offered strong support for order, for the rights of private property, and for the maintenance of the republic. His close family association with Napoleon Bonaparte also seemed to offer the promise of a more dynamic policy at home and abroad. At the election in December 1848 Louis Napoleon was returned with some five-and-a-half million votes out of the seven-and-a-half million cast. The now somewhat discredited General Cavignac being the closest runner up in the presidential campaign.
These reforms went a long way to satisfying peasant grieviances. A gradual easing of the level of unrest in these weeks of debate had been accompanied by a return of the Emperor from Innsbruck to the Schonbrunn, one of his principal palaces, on the outskirts of Vienna. The gradual easing of tensions and this return of the royal court, together with many wealthy Viennese, to Vienna allowed an upturn in spending and trading confidence. There was a resulting increase in employment which also allowed people to feel more content with their lives.
In May Radetzky was reinforced with the arrival of some 30,000 fresh soldiers that crossed the Alps and felt able to question orders that he arrange a truce with the Sardinian-Piedmontese sending an high ranking colleague, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, to Innsbruck to implore the Emperor to trust to the valour of his soldiers and to continue the combat. By late May, 1848, the Sardinian-Piedmontese had assumed control of Milan and during May, and into June, Lombardy, Parma, Modena and the Venetian mainland all separately voted for annexation in the hope of securing military aid. In June Radetzky's forces were further reinforced with an additional 20,000 fresh soldiers. In early July the previously independence-minded city of Venice, (where a Republic of St. Mark had been proclaimed), itself voted for such annexation as it then being blockaded by the Austrian navy and generally felt itself to be seriously threatened by an evident resurgence in Austrian power. Although the assemblies of several Italian territories had voted for annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont this was not put into effect as the Austrian commander Radetzky exceeded his official orders by leading his now reinforced armies based in the Quadrilateral against the Sardinian-Piedmontese led interest and won a decisive victory at Custozza on July 23rd. Radetzky's victory at Custozza contributed, along with other developments, to a resurgence in the fortunes of the Habsburg system. Given this resurgence, evidences of loyalty to his authority being shown by many Viennese citizens, Ministers and Deputies of the incoming "Constituent" assembly in Vienna uniting in demanding the return of the Emperor to the capital, such that the Emperor felt able to return to Vienna in the first half of August, 1848. In a letter to Jellachic of early September the Emperor himself expressed satisfaction with his proven loyalty - but did not restore him to the office of governor. Soon thereafter, September 11, Jellachic led a force of over fifty thousand men against the Hungarian interest. By this move Jellachic intended to support the restoration of the Habsburg Empire. The Hungarian Parliament was declared abolished by the Emperor on the 3rd of October, on the 6th arrangements for the sending of Austrian German regiments to the aid of Jellachic were followed by a serious revolt aimed at impeding this deployment by those in favour of continued radical reform in Vienna. The radical interest considered that should Jellachic and the Austrian regiments suppress the Hungarian separatism this would tend to also diminish the possibility of securing the formation of an administration that would be less under the sway of the dynasty and more responsive to the wishes for constitutional freedom of the Empire's "Peoples of State" or "Master Nations." Given the serious nature of this revolt the Emperor left Vienna for the Moravian cathedral-town of Olmutz where a manifesto was issued proclaiming that Imperial authority would be re-established by military action. During these weeks the Reichstag acting, in its efforts at framing a new constitution, as an Austrian Constituent Assembly was suffering from a withdrawal of its delegates due to the turbulence in Vienna and was re-located, at the Emperor's invitation, to the town of Kremsier, not far from Olmutz. The draft constitution drawn up there subsequently became known as the Kremsier Draft Constitution. The draft constitutional arrangements included a vauge phrase, originally proposed by a Czech delegate, holding that:- "All the peoples of the Empire have equal rights. Each of them has an inviolable right to the preservation and cultivation of its nationality in general and its language in particular. Legal equality of all languages customarily spoken in school, governmental agencies, and public life will be guaranteed by the state."
In the event the Windischgrätz forcibly captured Vienna repulsing the advances of an Hungarian relieving force which was in any case hesitant to cross the frontiers of Hungary into Austria without the express invitation of the radical-controlled rump of the assembly which continued to hold sessions in Vienna. Such nationalities as the Serbs, the Slovaks, and the Rumanians also tended to operate against the establishment of a definite Hungarian political power - not so much to restore the Habsburg system as to inhibit the unwelcome threat of Magyarisation. Thus a notable historical irony came about where those inclined to champion Slav and Rumanian nationality felt practically obliged to give their support to a reactionary dynasty which favoured absolutism largely because the would-be constitutionally and politically reforming Magyars, who would be politically dominant in an independent kingdom of Hungary which would contain Slav and Rumanian minorities, seemed to offer them full fruits of citizenship only after assimilation.
By the late autumn of 1848 was the Habsburg system was showing strong signs of recovery in many of
its historic territories.
In late October, the Frankfurt Parliament, in its efforts to define a future relationship between the Habsburg lands and the German Polity the Franfurt Parliament was hoping to represent in the future, voted to accept a Grossdeutsch, or Greater German, solution to this "German National Question" where Germanic and Czech lands traditionally ruled by the Habsburgs would be represented in Frankfurt but the other lands of the Habsburgs would enjoy other arrangements in some form of personal union with the Austrian Emperor. In November there was rioting in Berlin and King Frederick William ordered the dispersal of the Prussian Assembly. Prussian and other states' forces intervened in several German states to restore princely rule. On 27th November the Austrian minister Schwarzenberg insisted that the Austrian Empire must be preserved intact. Given this declaration the deputies at Frankfurt had little option other than to throw their weight behind a Kleindeutsch, or Little German, solution to the German National Question where none of the the Habsburg lands would be represented in Franfurt. In such an arrangement, that had already been sponsored by liberal nationalist deputies a preponderance of influence would inevitably fall to the powerful Prussian state. Austria was the traditionally the "leading power" in the German confederation, but of its thirty-six million inhabitants less than six million were German. Prussia was traditionally the "second power" in the German confederation, and of its sixteen million population some fourteen million were German. Alongside the power that Prussia tended to exercise as a quite extensive collection of populous territories it had also won prominence through being the organisational center of the Zollverein or Customs Union. The somewhat scattered existence of Prussian dynastic territories as gathered under one sceptre through dynastic inheritance or as a legacy of involvement in various political or dynastic turmoils had contributed to a desire to rationalise trading communications between Prussian territories. Customs duties, "internal" to the Prussian lands, that had initially put in place to facilitate the raising of revenues were increasingly abolished after 1818 to faciltate trading activity. Neighbouring german states were invited to join in a single customs area, the implicit "carrot" of freer trade being made more appealing by the also evident "stick" of high tariffs being levied on those neighbouring german states who did not co-operate. This approach had ultimately resulted in Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, the Thuringian States, Baden, Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt joining with the Prussian Customs Union by 1844. This widespread involvement of non-Prussian territories in the Zollverein tended to give Prussia some claims to leadership in other than economic matters also. In early December Schwarzenberg arranged the abdication of the incapable Emperor Ferdinand, whose authority had been tarnished by his concessions, in favour of an eighteen-year-old nephew the Archduke Francis. At the time of his accession Francis added Joseph to his name as Emperor in the hope of associating his rule with that of an earlier Emperor whose reforms were kindly remembered by many. A manifesto was issued in Francis Joseph's name which declared that he:- "firmly resolved to maintain untarnished the glory of the Crown, but ready to share Our rights with the representatives of Our people, We trust that We shall succeed .... in uniting all the lands and races of the Monarchy in one great organism."Alongside his German mother tongue Francis Joseph also spoke fluent Hungarian and had some facility in most of the dialects of his new subjects. The Hungarians were unwilling to consent to Francis Joseph being invested with the Crown of St. Stephen. On 4th March, 1849, Francis Joseph, having gained confidence in the recovery of Habsburg power, decided to discount the "Kremsier Draft Constitution" which had just been finalised by the representatives meeting at Kremsier, (the drafting of which by a constituent assembly had been consented to by the, recently deposed, previous Emperor), and issued, by decree, a new centralising Imperial Constitution, known to history as the “Forced March Constitution," or as the "Imposed March Constitution", devised by his own ministers, but largely based on the "Kremsier Draft Constitution," and moved to dissolve the Austrian Constituent Assembly on the 7th March, 1849. The "Decreed Constitution" was held to be applicable across the Habsburg Empire. The Hungarian kingdon was held to have invalidated pre-existing constitutional arrangements by its revolt against the Habsburg system. The "Decreed Constitution" was even held to be applicable to the Lombard-Venetian kingdom that had hitherto been treated as something of an imperial colony.
On 9th March Schwarzenberg threw his support behind a possible resolution to the question of the extent of the new German State by suggesting that the entire Austrian Empire should join with the Germanic Confederation in "an Empire of Seventy Millions" - (This being the Greater Austrian / Middle European Solution to the "German Question"). Schwarzenberg further suggested that the leadership of this Germanic Confederation with further, non-germanic, Habsburg ruled, territorial additions would alternate between Austria and Prussia. Those present as representatives in the Frankfurt Parliament had another option to consider than the Empire of Seventy Millions being suggested by Schwarzenburg in the form of Kleindeutschland. After further debate the Frankfurt Assembly responded to the ongoing constitutional stalemate by approving, on 28 March with some two-fifths of the representatives abstaining, a Kleindeutsch outcome and offering the throne as hereditary "Emperor of the Germans" to the King of Prussia. A thirty-two man delegation subsequently journeyed to Berlin to seek the consent of the King of Prussia. In the event King Frederick William, in polite and diplomatic terms told the delegation that he felt honoured but could accept the crown only with the consent "of the crowned heads, the princes, and the free cities of Germany." He nevertheless gave some consideration to the offer, over several weeks, before finally declining to become "Emperor of the Germans". King Frederick William was less polite about these developments in a letter to a relative in England in which he related that he felt deeply insulted by being offered "from the gutter" a crown, "disgraced by the stink of revolution, baked of dirt and mud." It appears that King Frederick William alongside his own romantic notions about kingship, (he had described Constitutions as "pieces of paper that stand between God, who appoints kings and rulers, and the people"), also thought of the House of Habsburg as being the naturally leading dynasty in the Germanies and as such was unwilling to attempt to challenge its leading role by accepting the Imperial title. In practical terms the Habsburg dynasty would have found such an acceptance to be intolerable and would probably have sought to undo it. The Tsar of Russia could also be presumed to be be strongly opposed to the replacement of the "dynastic" German Confederation by a liberal, constitutional, national, "Germany".
DECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE SEPARATION OF HUNGARY FROM AUSTRIAWE, the legally constituted representatives of the Hungarian nation, assembled in Diet, do by these presents solemnly proclaim, in maintenance of the inalienable natural rights of Hungary, with all its dependencies, to occupy the position of an independent European State -- that the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, as perjured in the sight of God and man, has forfeited its right to the Hungarian throne. At the same time we feel ourselves bound in duty to make known the motives and reasons which have impelled us to this decision, that the civilized world may learn we have taken this step not out of overweening confidence in our own wisdom, or out of revolutionary excitement, but that it is an act of the last necessity, adopted to preserve from utter destruction a nation persecuted to the limit of the most enduring patience. ...At this time the Hungarians had considerable military resources to call upon in support of the declaration of independence. These resources included a substantial Polish contingent including some able Polish generals. The struggle to subdue Hungary proving difficult the Austrian authority sought, in late April, the involvement of the Tsar and invited active Russian assistance in the name of "the holy struggle against anarchy." The Tsar of all the Russias was in principle supportive of divine-right dynastic governance and had also, and importantly, become pressingly concerned lest the Hungarian developments be copied in "his own" Polish Kingdom. He had already, and seriously, offered to assist in returning the Kingdom of Hungary to its earlier political position within the 'lands of the Habsburgs' and now sent, (although estimates vary), perhaps as many as some three hundred and sixty thousand of his soldiers to co-operate with Austrian forces in efforts to subdue Hungary. By late June 1849, with Hungarian nationalism being hard pressed by Austrian, Russian, and local nationality opposition, a "Nationality Act" offering several significant concessions intended to promote reconciliation between the Magyar majority and the many significant minority ethnic groups in the Hungarian lands, was passed into law by the Hungarian Assembly at a time, late July 1849, when the would-be Hungarian parliament was obliged by the pressure of its many adversaries to hold it sessions away from Budapest in the provincial town of Szeged. Law VIII of 1849, (the first such nationalities law in Europe), made some concessions guaranteeing "the free national development for all the nationalities living within the territory of Hungary". The nationalities could hope to see the use of their own languages in primary schools. Magyar would remain the language of the central governmental communication and legislation. Local political assemblies were made open to being addressed in any language, where any nationality was an absolute local majority at county level the minutes of their proceedings could be preserved in the local majority language as well as in Hungarian. Local National Guards were to be commanded through the medium of their local languages. Promotion within the public service was to be fully on the basis of ability and merit and there were guarantees that selection for public offices would be undertaken without regard to the mother tongue or the religion of the applicants. Other concessions offering emancipation to the Jews and legal favour to peasants involved in land disputes with landlords were, in part, intended to generate new support for Hungarian independence. This attempt to win support from the nationalities proved to be, however, at this time when overwhelming masses of Russian and Austrian troops were closing in on every side, (and when the Hungarian kingdom was still unhappily experiencing the grief stricken aftermath of an often furious conflict over language and communal rights), a case of too little and too late. This law was the last measure enacted by this Hungarian Assembly as the Russian and Austrian interventions, in alliance with re-assertions of Habsburg power, overwhelmed the movement towards the independence of the Hungarian Monarchy by mid August 1849.
In the circumstances what was left of the credibility of the Assembly largely evaporated - the Frankfurt Assembly was discontinued in May with a rump of mainly left-leaning delegates ineffectively reconvening at Stuttgart. During the early summer of 1849 such German states as Baden, Württemberg, the Bavarian Palatinate, the Prussian Rhineland and Saxony experienced turmoils that seemed to offer support to the Frankfurt Parliament but which also featured evident social revolutionary aspects. In early May Prussian forces intervened to suppress a serious radical rising in Dresden, the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, without the encouragement or consent of the German National Assembly. Following on from leftist rioting in the Prussian Rhineland Karl Marx' Rheinische Zeitung was ordered to cease publication. Such social revolutionary turmoil was widely seen as a threat by many who were fairly content with the more modest reforms that was already deemed to have already been secured through the Frankfurt Assembly process. Wider society increasing looked to the authorities to maintain order against such perceived extremism. The foot soldiers involved, although often drawn from the same stratas of society that also produced radical insurrectionists, commonly saw themselves as acting in defence of the "March achievements" against dangerous radicalism. Prussia's leading role in these interventions in several historic states of the Germanies did not seem to bring with it unpopularity with the wider society of the German states affected or with the soldiers of other states who commonly aligned themselves with the Prussian drive against perceived extremism. After the recovery of reaction in the Germanies the Constitutions of many German states were rendered less liberal or suspended altogether.
On February 18th Pope Pius, believing this Declaration of a Roman Republic to be an intolerable revolutionary overthrow of what was not only an historically valid polity but which was also, and more importantly, the divinely ordained seat of the Papacy, called upon France, Austria, Naples and Spain to restore the States of the Church to Papal Sovereignty. In March at Novara the Austrians won an important victory over the forces led by Sardinia-Piedmont prompting King Charles Albert to abdicate. He was succeeded by a son, Victor Emmanuel who, in a personal interview with the Austrian commander Radetzky agreed to the continuance of the Sardinian Statuto constitutional arrangements as this continuance was seen, by the Austrians, to be likely to better reconcile potentially turbulent Piedmontese radicals to the post-conflict situation. Austrian intervention secured the restoration of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to his throne - it now seemed that Rome would similarly be returned to Papal authority before many weeks had passed. The Sicilian Parliament had pronounced Ferdinand, the Boubon dynast who ruled from Naples, to be deposed and had offered the throne to a younger brother of Victor Emmanuel. King Ferdinand responded by despatching a naval fleet which proceeded to bombard Messina over five days. Negotiations were entered into but agreement proved elusive. In the event Sicily was invested with King Ferdinand's soldiers such that the capital, Palermo, was captured on May 15. The government of Louis Napoleon in France preferred that Austrian arms should not themselves achieve the restoration of the Papal power in Rome as this could lead to the re-establishment of an Austrian hegemony in the peninsula that could well be harmful to the perceived interests of France. Louis Napoleon also hoped to gain favour with powerful Roman Catholic interests in France through a French intervention intended to win Rome back to the sovereignty of the papacy. Some ten thousand soldiers were duly sent from the French Republic with the minority republican element in the French assembly being assured of the good intentions of the assembly towards the Roman population and of a desire to avert possible Austrian domination. The large army sent by France landed on the coast near Rome on 25 April 1849 and was directly responsible for the militarily contested overthrow of the Roman Republic in early July 1849 despite a stout resistance led by several patriotric Italians including Mazzini and Garibaldi. This French intervention, was styled for French domestic consumption as being a necessary to overthrow unpopular "foreigners who had come from all parts of Italy."
On August 25 an Austrian army overthrew the independence of Venice where resistance had been worn down by cholera and famine as well as by military siege and bombardment.
The revolutions of 1848-9 which had once seemed to sweep all before it, had revealed that there was a powerful groundswell of dissatisfaction with traditional dynastic governance but where it was set aside this usually led to the emergence of situations where deep rivalries centered on the forwarding of sectionally "popular" socialistic and sectionally "popular" nationalist aspirations by some interested groups that were deeply unwelcome to other interested groups. The resulting divisions and turmoils alienated many people from the course of the revolutions and facilitated the return of local dynastic authority as a broadly acceptable champion of order over chaos. In the German lands the liberal's so-called "springtime of peoples" (Völkerfrühling) of 1848 was now often openly condemned as the Year of Folly (das tolle Jahr) by those who favoured the return of traditional authority. Just as in the 1789-1815 era Russia again eventually intervened in support of the tradition of throne and altar governance.
This involved an elimination of the "robot" feudal services which the peasantry had previously to render to local magnates. This led to far-reaching transformations in society where agriculture became more commercial and less feudal and where many poorer peasants were unable to survive economically due to falling prices. A consequent increase in migration of (usually) Slav peasants to (often previously) Germanised urban areas sometimes tended to contribute further to the establishment of conditions for continued "local clashes of culture and language" between German and Slav over large tracts of the Austrian Empire. There was also an imparting of impetus to nationalism in the Italian Peninsula and in "the Germanies." Enduring change towards more inclusive representation or constitutional government occurred in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland. Things had also changed in that Scwartzenberg's newly centralised Austrian Empire featured a lesser role than heretofore for persons of aristocratic background drawn from the non-Germanic nationalities. All too often in recent times such persons had identified with localised populist nationalisms at the expense of Imperial Order. German was declared to be the official language across the empire and german-speaking middle class administrators were put in place as the administration became both more centralised and focused more locally on the nationalities - but with loyalty to the Emperor being expected of all. Such nationalities as had offered support to the continuance in being of the Habsburg system were treated in the same way as those nationalities which had sought constitutionalist, liberalist, or nationalist concessions. In said that "the Croats got as a reward what the Magyars got as a punishment". Austrian german speaking administrators and officials descended as noticably on Croatian and Rumanian lands as they did on Hungarian ones. The imposed constitution was short-lived and existed in theory for a mere three years only. When the power of the monarchy increased substantially, absolutism was formally re-instituted with the New Year’s Eve Decree, (the “Silvester Patent”), of 31 December, 1851. For about a decade, no more was heard about parliaments.
"France, in the midst of confusion, seeks for the hand, the will of him whom it elected on the 10th of December. The victory won on that day was the victory of a system, for the name of Napoleon is itself a programme. It signifies order, authority, religion, national prosperity within; national dignity without. It is this policy, inaugurated by my election, that I desire to carry to triumph with the support of the Assembly and of the people."On 2nd December 1851, an anniversary of a famous victory achieved at Austerlitz by Napoleon I, the Republican constitution was more completely overthrown:- "The present situation cannot continue. Each day that passes increases the country's danger. The Assembly, supposed to be the staunchest supporter of order, has become a hot-bed of sedition. The patriotism of three hundred members was not enough to curb its fatal tendencies. Instead of legislation for the public good, it is forging weapons for civil war. It is making a bid for the power that I wield directly by virtue of the people's will. It fosters every wicked passion. It is jeopardising the stability of France. I have dissoved the National Assembly and I invite the whole people to adjudicate between me and it."Proclamation of Louis Napoleon of 2nd December 1851Under the previous constitutional arrangements Louis Napoleon would have had to leave office in 1852 with there also being a law against the re-election of previous holders of the presidential office. Louis Napoleon, who had run up very heavy personal debts, knew that his political adversaries were waiting for an opportunity to move against him. The Proclamation of 2nd December was accompanied by the arrest of seventy-eight of such key political opponents. Each of these arrests being executed by a different police officer who was individually unaware of the other arrests taking place to facilitate Louis Napoleon's overall plans. France was now presented by Louis Napoleon with a scenario where he would stay in power for a further ten years provided that his takeover of power was endorsed in a national plebiscite. In a short lived period of protest some 500 persons lost their lives, some 27,000 were arrested, with some 10,000 of those being deported. In the subsequent National Plebiscite, held on 2nd December 1852, 7,400,000 persons voted for Louis Napoleon continuing to hold presidential powers with 600,000 voting against. "France has realized that I broke the law only to do what was right. The votes of over 7,000,000 have just granted me absolution."The French Republic was subsequently replaced by a form of Empire under Louis Napoleon who was to hold power as Emperor Napoleon III. Napoleon I being Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon II being a title imputed to the son of the politically arranged marriage between Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian Archduchess. This son had been raised under Metternich's overall supervision as an Austrian Duke but had died of tuberculosis at the young age of twenty-one. As his life ebbed away this young Duke left the great ceremonial sword of honour he had inherited from his father not to any of his surviving Bonaparte uncles but to his cousin Louis Napoleon. The implication of this title being that "Napoleon III" sought to identify his empire with that of Napoleon Bonaparte and intended to pursue somewhat Bonapartist policies at home and abroad. Where the truly dynastic rulers of Europe respected the principle of dynastic sovereignty and were also usually supportive of church influence on society such was not the "Bonapartist outlook." In particular Napoleon III was somewhat prepared to take upon himself the promotion of states based on what was called the so-called "national principle." His uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte after defeat and in exile, had claimed to have been a champion of this "principle" but an examination of Bonaparte's policies suggests that such support as he offered to it was perhaps guided by considerations related to his own imperial framework and the winning of allies amongst peoples whilst avoiding the alienation of mighty adversaries such as the Tsar of Russia. Napoleon III saw the promotion of national statehood as being a necessary response to the existence of popular and national aspirations that might tend to overspill into turbulent challenges to the then existing system. He also hoped that France might gain diplomatically by being the sponsor of such states and thus winning friends and allies. The situation where Napoleon III, as the ruler of one of the most inherently powerful states of western Europe, was prepared to undermine historic traditions of dynastic rule in order to facilitate the emergence of states based moreso on ethnic nationhood was likely to bring with it a degree of constitutional and political turmoil in Europe. Napoleon III was also to some degree dismissive of the validity of the "Vienna Settlement" of 1815, which had attempted to restore dynastic rule after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. (Something of the nature of the potential constitutional and political turmoil that might tend to result from Napoleon III's adoption of such policies can be seen in a scenario, early in 1863, where the Empress Eugenie the wife of Napoleon III, spent some three hours showing the Austrian ambassador a projected "more rational" map of Europe. This proposed map envisioned dramatic and unprecedented changes to the sovereignty of several states. A Polish state was to be re-established - such re-establishment would be at the expense of Prussia, Austria and Russia but Russia was to make compensatory gains in Asia Minor and Prussia in a consolidated North Germany. The emergent Italian kingdom [that had been formed in 1861] would gain Venetia with the Austrian Empire being compensated with Silesia and some territories in the Balkans. Greece would gain Constantinople [Istanbul] whilst the Ottoman Empire's lands in Europe seemed to disappear into other existing european states. France herself was to gain the left bank of the Rhine at the expense of German princes who might hope for territorial compensation in South America.) Given his political outlook it happened that Napoleon III decided to interact diplomatically, and militarily, with dynastic ministers such as Cavour (prime minister to the House of Savoy) and Bismarck (prime minister to the House of Hohenzollern), in ways which culminated in the establishment of states - a Kingdom of Italy in 1861 (Cavour) and a second German Empire in 1871 (Bismarck) - that were simultaneously both dynastic and moreso in accordance with the "national principle". Powerful sections of the local populations in both these situations tending to support the replacement of the former patchworks of traditional dynastic states of the Italian peninsula and the German lands as a necessary route towards the establishment of more powerful and more progressive states that were also associated with shared feelings of nationality. Interestingly, in both of these cases Napoleon III got more than he bargained for in that the Italian Kingdom and the German Empire that eventually emerged were both more territorially extensive and more independent of French influence than he had anticipated. Similarly Cavour and Bismarck also got more than they bargained for in that the establishment of the Italian Kingdom and the German Empire were in practice associated with a lessening of the full acceptance of the personal sovereignty of dynastic rulers and a greater acceptance of popular national sovereignty. In 1879 Edward Augustus Freeman, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, wrote:- A hundred years ago man's political likes and dislikes seldom went beyond the range suggested by the place of his birth or immediate descent, Such birth or descent made him a member of this or that political community, a subject of this or that prince, a citizen - perhaps a subject - of this or that commonwealth. The political community of which he was a member had its traditional alliances and traditional enemies, and by those traditional alliances and traditional enemies the likes and dislikes of the members of that community were guided. But those traditional alliances and enemies were seldom determined by theories about language or race. The people of this or that place might be discontented under a foreign government; but, as a rule, they were discontented only if subjection to that foreign government brought with it personal supression or at least political degradation. Regard or disregard of some purely local priveledge or local feeling went for more than the fact of a government being native or foreign. What we now call the sentiment of nationality did not go for much; what we call the sentiment of race went for nothing at all. Only a few men here or there would have understood the feelings which have led to the two great events of our time, the political reunion of the German and Italian nations after their long political dissolution. Between circa 1850 and 1870 several territorially ambitious Dynasties tried to exploit or "ride the tiger" of populist nationalism. In the case of Count Camillo Cavour this facilitated a form of Italian unification. In the case of Count Otto von Bismarck this led to a form of German unification. It was to be as consequences of the extreme turmoils associate with the First World War that the Austrian, German and Russian Empires were replaced by sucessor states. Largely as part of a "battle for hearts and minds" the American President Wilson supported the autonomous development of the nationalities within the Habsburg territories leading to the establishment of a multiplicity of national states - although attempts were made to provide reassurances to the minorities inevitably inherited by these sucessor states. Palacky's belief that the Slavic nationalities in large part depended on the Habsburg system for their security may have been fully vindicated after the Second World War as the sucessor states proved to be highly vulnerable to Soviet Russian encroachments.
Other Popular European History pages
The preparation of these pages was influenced to some degree by a particular "Philosophy
of History" as suggested by this quote from the famous Essay "History" by Ralph Waldo Emerson:-
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Return to start of
The revolution of 1848
Aftermath - "Order" re-established
Several Dynasties recover power
