european revolution 1848 Metternich, europe, history, 1848,
[revolution of 1848]
The revolution of 1848, Louis Phillipe

Home > History & Historians > 1848 > The European Revolution of 1848

   Site Map   |   Slide Shows   |   Guest Book   |   Links   |   About Us   |   Download Wisdoms   |   Support Us  

The following review of the Revolution of 1848 was prepared against a background of assumptions about human beings:-

Other pages of our site demonstrate why it may be reasonable to regard human nature as being simultaneously materialistic, spiritual, and ethnic, but with a overlay of intelligence (and of individual personality!).

Principally these assumptions tend to see political developments as often being influenced by the promptings of human nature - as Emerson puts it:-

"...man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots,
whose flower and fruitage is the world..."


The European Revolution of 1848

The European Revolution of 1848 represents a widespead emergence of situations where populist aspirations, or human aspirations as less limited by traditions of respect for monarchical or religious authority, variously sought constitutional, liberal, nationalist or socialistic changes in society.

The structure of the states of Europe within and between which the dramatic events of 1848-1849 were played out was very different from that of today. European political life was then based upon a number of dynastic states that had been established over many centuries albeit with some significant modifications as a result of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1789-1815. At the close of these wars dynastic rulers had been restored to most of the historic thrones of Europe and dynastic rulers once again sought to exercise sovereign power whilst (in theory at least) resuming the role traditionally expected of "God's Annointed" sovereign princes - i.e. that of offering justice and protection to their subjects.

In 1848 the Italian peninsula was politically organised into a number of sovereign dynastic and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due to Papal diplomacy preferring that no large states should exist in the peninsula as a potential rival to Papal diplomatic power and influence. This policy had facilitated the formation of a number of city states north of Rome and south of the Alps that had played a very notable role in European commerce during the Middle Ages. These same wealthy city states had later become centres of the European Renaissance. Later still they tended to form the nucleus of emergent Duchies and Grand Duchies.

Similarly in 1848 it was more appropriate to refer to what we now know as Germany as "The Germanies" or as the "German Confederation". There were a large number of politically sovereign dynastic and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due to the policies of several Holy Roman Emperors who, either to ensure support during their disputes with the Papacy, or to secure their position in relation to lands over which they were themselves more immediately sovereign, or to secure the acceptance of their heirs to the Imperial succession, tended to concede full sovereignty to greater and lesser German princes, to greater and lesser churchmen, to so-called Free Imperial Cities and even, in cases, to so-called Free Imperial Knights.

There was a significant "Thirty Years War" between 1617-1648 largely contested in "The Germanies". The French kingdom became involved in order to frustrate the political and diplomatic power of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. The French input into the settlements to this war was in large part directed towards the firm establishment of a continued decentralisation of political power in The Germanies.

The Habsburgs of Austria were sovereign over immense territories in central and eastern Europe and had for several centuries, until the abeyance of that title in 1806 due to the activities of Napoleon Bonaparte, been Holy Roman Emperors. The immense territories ruled by the Habsburgs had been gathered together largely as a result of dynastic marriages.
One such marriage being that with a princess of the Jagellon dynasty, when her brother perished in battle against the Ottoman Empire in 1526 the Hungarian and Bohemian Estates, in search of protection against further Ottoman encroachment, ratified an Habsburg succession to sovereignty. Bohemia and Hungary (with Croatia) experienced a tradition of germanic linguistic and cultural exposure as the patterns of trade (and culture) then emerging in central and eastern europe, and the Baltic region, were largely under the influence of predominantly germanic trading networks including that of the Hanseatic League. The prevalence of these networks was greatly enhanced by local rulers often inviting the establishment, by skilled ethnic Germans, of largely self-regulating trading and farming settlements that were intended by such sponsoring rulers to enhance the overall prosperity of their realms. Another of the many outcomes of the "Thirty Years War" was the displacement, by the victorious Habsburg dynasty, of the indigenous Czech aristocracy in Bohemia by other, often Germanised, nobles after the Battle of the White Mountain of 1620.
It seems also that both ethnic Germans and Slavs had a long history of being present as ebbing and flowing communities in Bohemia.

Another notable difference between the European state structure in 1848 and that of today is the position of Poland. In 1848 Poland did not exist. In earlier times it had developed traditions of elective kingship and of allowing representatives to the Polish Assembly to have powers of veto over political decisions. These traditions did much to leave Poland as a less effective participant in the rough and tumble of European diplomacy.
There were actual partitions of Poland in the later eighteenth century where the Russian Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia all conspired to help themselves to large chunks of the Polish kingdom to the extent that Poland had effectively disappeared from the political map of Europe!!!
Polish nationalist unrest in (Austrian) Galicia, (Russian) Congress Poland and the tiny, 425 sq. mile, Free State of Cracow in 1846 was suppressed with Cracow being annexed by the Austria Empire much to the indignation of Polish Nationalists and of liberals across Europe.

It may also be difficult for our own age to appreciate the degree to which dynastic rulers in earlier times acted in accordance with the belief that their sovereign authority, which might well be exercised without much in the way of modification through processes of popular representation, was actually divinely ordained and hence of unquestionable legitimacy.
Dynastic rulers were usually supported by church authorities in this belief. The churches expected kings to exercise sovereign power as "God's annointed rulers" upholding laws and offering justice and protection to their subjects.

It should be borne in mind, however, that in many states of Europe at that time traditions of respect for the powers of dynastic rulers and churches were not as powerful as they had been. European society was changing, populist ideas about such things as 'the sovereignty of the people', 'constitutional governance' and a 'romanticisation of cultural nationhood' had gained currency and tended to undermine acceptance of the traditions of dynastic authority and governance.
Whilst dynastic rulers had been accepted as being sovereign over their dynastic lands gathered together as they may had been through inheritance, dynastic marriages and wars of succession ideas about popular sovereignty and nationhood inevitably raised questions about the territory where would-be nations could expect to exercise sovereignty particularly where more than one "emergent nation" sought to establish itself politically on territories formerly subject to the rule of one dynastic house.

The following series of five pages which considers the beginnings of the Revolution, developments in France, German developments, Italian developments, and then the recovery of political power by the traditional "throne and altar" governments may then do something towards demonstrating the workings of human nature related aspirations as contributing notably to the "Unfolding of History".


The Springtime of the Peoples

The revolution of 1848-1849, sometimes referred to as the Springtime of the Peoples, can perhaps be seen as a particularly active phase in the challenge populist claims to political power had intermittently been making against the power of the traditional dynastic governments of Europe.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era (1789-1815) had been brought to a close by an anti-Napoleonic coalition of Dynastic states who subsequently authorised the restoration of "legitimate" rulers who had been displaced from their thrones and also authorised a supression of liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism in order to ensure the continued political authority of dynastic government.

As with several instances of revolution in Europe previously that of 1848 was to have its major point of origin in France. There were however a number of other episodes elsewhere in Europe which indicated the readiness of several states for involvement in revolution in the years just prior to 1848 itself.

  Poor grain harvests, the appearance of blight - an extremely serious disease - in potato crops, and generally depressed economic conditions across much of Europe in 1845-6 led to rising food prices, unemployment, and a radicalisation of political attitudes. Such radicalism was somewhat encouraged by the election to the Papacy, as Pope Pius IX in June 1846, of an incumbent who soon thereafter followed policies perceived as being "Liberal" and by the fact of a "federal" Swiss interest, that was perceived by liberals as being progressive, prevailing in November 1847, over several Cantons leagued in a "Separate Union" or Sonderbund that had been supported in attempts to place limits on liberal reform by such reactionary powers as Metternich's Austria and Guizot's France.

  During these times France was yet a monarchy under Louis Phillipe but with his "Liberal" monarchy having few real supporters. Elections were held on the basis of quite limited suffrage, many felt excluded from any possibility of gaining wealth, and others felt that the bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy compared unfavourably with earlier "Glorious" eras of French Monarchy or Empire.

  On 14th January 1848 the authorities banned a "banquet", one of a series being held in protest against such things as limitations on the right of assembly and the narrow scope of the political franchise, with the result that the it was postponed by its organisers. Although the banquet, now set for the 22nd February, was cancelled at the last minute there was some disturbance in the Paris streets. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipe dismissed Guizot, his unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the 24th. In the wake of these dramatic developments there was an establishment of a Provisional Government of a French Republic. On the 25th February socialists in Paris secured a decree which proclaimed that the newly formed provisional government would undertake to provide work and would also recognise workers rights to "combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits of their labour."

  The Kingdom of Hungary had come into the Habsburg orbit in 1526 as a result of its then king perishing in wars against a then expansionary Ottoman Empire and with that king's sister being married to the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand of Austria who later succeeded his brother (Charles V) as Holy Roman Emperor. After the critical Battle of Mohacs much of Hungary was subject to Ottoman control up until 1699 when Ottoman sway over Hungary was substantially undone by a resurgence of Austrian power. Although successors to the joint Habsburg-Jagellon dynastic line were crowned as Kings of Hungary amongst their other titles there had been several instances of Hungarian restiveness over political and confessional issues. In 1848 such restiveness tended to be towards the establishment of a greater degree of distinct existence for the Kingdom of Hungary under an Habsburg ruler as a constitutional King of Hungary.

The rising tide of cultural and linguistic nationalism which Europe had experienced since the later eighteenth century was marked, in relation to the position of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austrian empire, by demands being made for greater use of the Hungarian "Magyar" tongue. The nationalistic leader Kossuth was prominent at Diets of the Hungarian Kingdom held at Pressburg (Bratislava) in 1840 and 1844 in securing the position of the Magyar tongue as the official language, and as the language of public education. After 1847 the proceedings of the Hungarian Diet were conducted through Magyar instead of Latin.
The Hungarian-Magyar kingdom had been established after the Magyars, as a powerful and somewhat martial people, had migrated into the Carpathian basin where they established their sway over some of the neighbouring Slavic peoples with the result that the kingdom in 1848 was dominated by the Magyars but was also peopled by various Slav minorities. By this time the former losses to the Ottoman empire had been recovered and certain territories such as Transylvania and areas of the Balkans, that had also been won from Ottoman control, were also seen as being associated with the Kingdom of Hungary. The Latin tongue had been somewhat accessible to the other ethnicities represented at Pressburg as it was often represented in classical traditions of education besides being a prominent language of religion and scholarship. The Magyar tongue was more exclusive to the Magyars and has a reputation for being difficult to learn.

The Magyars, in fact, only comprised perhaps only four in ten of the population of the Hungarian Kingdom which was also peopled by Croats, Serbs, Rumanians and others. The several ethnic groups domiciled under the auspices of the Hungarian Diet were also variously influenced by romanticisations of their own local traditions of nationality, the Croats, in particular, had experienced a pronounced development of a romanticised national conciousness, and were much inclined to resist potential Magyarisation focussing their aspiration on the recovery of an "Illyrian" language.

  Early in 1848, after hearing of the developments in France Kossuth made a speech in support of a constitutionally defined governmental system for Hungary at a session of the Diet on 4th March.

"...from the charnel-house of the Viennese system a poison-laden atmosphere steals over us, which paralyses our nerves and bows us when we would soar. ... the antagonism which has existed for three centuries between the absolutist government of Vienna, and the constitutional tendency of the Hungarian nation, has not up to this day been reconciled. ..."
There was also unrest in Vienna on 13th March that led to Prince Metternich, the Austrian statesmen who had done so much since the humbling of Napoleon to organise the Princes of Europe in opposition to the spirit of Revolution that had been stirring since 1789, losing the confidence of the Imperial Family and deciding to go into exile.

Some days later after an incident precipitated street fighting in Berlin, the capital of the Prussian Kingdom, King Frederick William withdrew his soldiers rather than see even more fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently, on the 19th March, called upon by the populace to stand, bareheaded, whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed.
The following day a political amnesty brought about the release of the Polish revolutionist Mieroslawski and his forty followers from their two years of imprisonment at Moabit jail. A triumphant procession took them from the prison to the palace, in carriages pulled by enthusiastic Berliners. Mieroslawski waved a black-red-gold banner, proclaiming that Poles and Germans were brothers. Some Berliners, meanwhile, carried red and white "Polish" flags. These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" and "conservative". They were open to being associated with contemporary German Liberalism and Nationalism having been adopted by "patriotic" Germany in the days of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon but were also open to being thought of as being associated with the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation."
That same day Frederick William rode in a stately progress through the streets of Berlin, wearing a black-red-gold brassard, accompanied by his generals who also wore black-red-gold emblems, along with his similarly-decorated ministers. The king presented himself as behaving as German leaders had in earlier times when they had " grasped the banner in situations of disorder and placed themselves at the head of the whole people. "
On the 22nd March the 190 Berliners who had fallen in the street fighting were given a state funeral with their funeral observances being attended by representatives of all branches of the government, wearing their golden chains of office.

In early April the Austrian Emperor promised in a Charter of Bohemia that there should be a responsible government for Bohemia and substantial concessions to the Czech language. Czech aspiration further sought that Bohemia and Moravia with Silesia should be regarded as a single administrative unit - "the Lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslaus" - but this was not conceded.

As March continued, and into April, there was a rush of laws passed by the Hungarian Diet in support of the administration there being free of Austrian control. Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia, styled as "the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen" were deemed a single state. The Austrian Emperor formally accepted these changes on 11th April.

Agitations centred upon Vienna itself led to Lower Austria, (the non-Hungarian realms of the empire), being assured on 15 March that deputies from the provinces would be called to Vienna to frame a Constitution for Austria. There was a subsequent attempt by the dynasty, on April 25, to award a somewhat conservative constitution that authorised a bi-cameral legislature inherently retaining much influence to the dynasty, and required steep property requirements as a qualification for voting rights to the lower parliamentary chamber. This attempted imposition of a constitution was protested at by many interests and, after continued demostrations, the Imperial family departed from "the violence and anarchy of Vienna" in mid-May and journeyed to provincial Innsbruck leaving behind authorisation for a unicameral legislature with greatly less restrictive qualifications in relation to voting rights.
It was accepted that this legislature would undertake the framing of a Constitution for Lower Austria.

From Innsbruck the emperor did not seek to immediately withdraw from his forced concessions in relation to the projected Assembly but some revulsion of feeling in conservative circles in Vienna allowed his ministers to move to dissolve perhaps the main wellspring of Viennese radicalism - the hitherto highly vocal and politically influential Students Legion. It also happened that the University was due to close down for the long summer vacation.

Czech, Polish and other Slav elements within the lands of the Habsburgs reacted to the events of 1848 and to the nationalistic and constitutional developments in the Germanic lands by arranging for a pan-Slav Congress to convene at Prague in early June.

1848 revolution

The revolution of 1848 begins

The French revolution of 1848
The german revolution 1848
The Frankfurt Vorparlament


Italian developments 1846-8
italy revolution 1848

1849 - the Dynasties recover power

Emerson's "Transcendental" approach to History
.
Spirituality & the wider world
.
Some Social Theory and insights
.
The Unfolding of History
.
The Vienna Declaration
.
Framework Convention on National minorities

Return to start of
European revolution of 1848 page