The European Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848 represent a widespead emergence of situations, across much of Europe, 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.
That being said the actual turmoils began in 1848 and were effectively brought to an end in 1849 with an appearance of a
restoration to power by the pre-existing dynastic ruling houses to most of the affected states - with France being a notable exception.
This appearance of restoration gives some scope for a questioning as to the legacy of the widespread disruptions of 1848-1849.
Some professional historians have given divergent opinions on this matter:-
A.J.P. Taylor, perhaps the first historian to have a genuinely popular public following due to his masterly presentation
of historical topics on a dedicated TV series, in relation to the Germanic experience of 1848, coined the phrase that
"history reached its turning point and failed to turn".
Another historian, Hans Rothfels, has asserted that:-
"Failure or not, 1848 was a genuine turning point. The year 1850 no more
restored 1847 than 1815 had returned to 1788". . . .
In February 1948, the historian Lewis
Namier (1888–1960) delivered a lecture commemorating the centennial of the
European Revolutions of 1848.
In this lecture Namier presented facts about the historical developments, themes, and events evident in 1848 and reached the conclusion that:-
“1848
remains a seed-plot of history. It crystallized ideas and projected the pattern of
things to come; it determined the course of the following century."
Seen from this perspective the European Revolutions of 1848-1849 may perhaps be held to rank, in terms of historical significance,
alongside such other historical watershed events as:-
- 1492
- The discovery, to Europeans, of the Americas.
- 1776
- The determined movement towards independence in British colonial north America.
- 1789
- The onset of the French Revolution
We are pleased to make available a series of quite brief, but nevertheless informative, pages about the highly significant and
historically instructive european revolutions of 1848 :-
- 1 * This Page * - The European Revolutions of 1848 begin
- A broad outline of the background to the onset of the turmoils and a consideration of some of the early events.
- 2 The French Revolution of 1848
- A particular focus on France - as the influential Austrian minister Prince Metternich, who sought to encourage the re-establishment of "Order" in the wake of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic turmoils of 1789-1815, said:-"When France sneezes Europe catches a cold".
- 3 The Revolution of 1848 in the German Lands and central Europe
- "Germany" had a movement for a single parliament in 1848 and many central European would-be "nations" attempted
to assert a distinct existence separate from the dynastic sovereignties they had been living under.
Delegates returned from the historic states of the Germanies
convened in Frankfurt 1848-9 and entered into protracted debates with the
intention of producing Constitutional arrangements for a "united" Germany.
- 4 The "Italian" Revolution of 1848
- A "liberal" Papacy after 1846 helps allow the embers of an "Italian" national aspiration to rekindle across the Italian Peninsula.
- 5 The Monarchs recover power 1848-1849
- Some instances of social and political extremism allow previously pro-reform liberal elements to join conservative elements in supporting
the return of traditional authority. Louis Napoleon, (who later became the Emperor Napoleon III), attains to power
in France offering social stability at home but ultimately follows policies productive of dramatic change in the wider European
structure of states and their sovereignty.
Some historical background to the revolutions of 1848
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 1820, Metternich, a principal Minister in the service of Francis II Emperor of Austria, wrote a Memorandum to Tsar
Alexander I of Russia whose forces had recently, (1812-1815), contributed fully to the defeat of Napoleon.
Kings have to calculate the chances of their very existence in the immediate future; passions are let loose, and league together
to overthrow everything which society respects as the basis of its existence; religion, public morality, laws, customs, rights, and duties, all are
attacked, confounded, called into question. The great mass of the people are tranquil spectators of these attacks and revolutions, and of the absolute want of all means
of defence. A few are carried off by the torrent, but the wishes of the immense majority are to maintain a repose which exists no longer, and of which even the first elements
seem to be lost...
...It is principlly the middle classes of society which the moral gangrene has affected, and it is only among them that the real heads of the party
are to be found...
...There is besides scarcely any epoch which does not offer a rallying cry to some particular faction, this cry, since 1815, has been Constitution...
...We are convinced that society can no longer be saved without strong and vigourous resolutions on the part of the Governments still free in their opinions
and actions. We are also convinced that this may yet be, if the Governments face the truth, if they free themselves from all illusion, if they join their ranks
and take their stand on a line of correct, unambiguous, and frankly announced principles.
By this course the monarchs will fulfil the duties imposed on them by Him (i.e. God), who, by entrusting them with power, has charged them to watch over the maintenance
of justice, and the rights of all...
In 1821 the Austrian emperor Francis II spoke thus to the professors of prominent second-level academy in Laibach:-
"Hold to the old, for it is good, and our ancestors found it to be good,
so why should not we? There are now new ideas going about, which I never can nor will approve. Avoid these, and keep to what is positive.
For I need no savants, but worthy citizens. To form the youth into such citizens is your task. He who serves me must teach what I order.
He who cannot do so, or who comes with new ideas, can go, or I shall remove him."
After the fall of Napoleon Metternich continued to be a powerful supporter of the censorship of newspapers and journals, of the taking
of information from a socially diverse range of
informants about any "dangerously radical" activities, or even converstions, of Austrian citizens which might be investigated, and
of the banning of "questionable" books from circulating in the Austrian Empire.
Despite this ban many newspapers, journals, and books, did circulate clandestinely within the Empire where many of their
readers seemed to consider that something was not worth reading unless it was officially prohibited.
Several prominent European Kingdoms and Empires leagued together in the aftermath of the widespread disruptions
of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in defence of traditional monarchical governance and of its
principles. This arrangement known as the "Congress System" or as the "Congress of Europe" held congress
in several European towns and cities where arising crises were discussed with a view to arriving at agreed
plans of action to contain disruption.
In November, 1815, Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia formed the original Quadruple Alliance in support of such a "Concert of Europe".
Article II of a Treaty of Alliance and Friendship concuded between these powers includes the following:-
... And as the same Revolutionary Principles which upheld the last criminal usurpation might again, under other forms, convulse France, and thereby
endanger the repose of other states; under these circumstances, the High Contracting Parties solemnly admitting it to be their duty
to redouble their watchfulness for the tranquility and interests of their people, engage, in case so unfortunate an event should again occur,
to concert amongst themselves ... the measures which they may judge necessary to be pursued for the safety of their respective States, and for
the general Tranquility of Europe ...
At a "Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle" in 1818, France, (to which the Bourbon dynasty had been restored after the defeat of Napoleon),
was admitted to the, now, Quintuple Alliance.
Subsequent congess were held at Troppau, (1820). in response to revolts in Spain, Portugal, Piedmont and Naples.
At Laibach, (1821), where Austria and Russia indicted their readiness to send soldiers to suppress the Italian revolts but Britain opposed intervention.
At Verona, (1822), and at St Petersburg (1825).
An inability to reach full agreement as to their joint actions had seen Britain effectively withdraw
from this Congress System in 1822, at Verona. The remaining members of this Concert of Europe arangement
continued to fall short of full agreement on joint policies.
Political change in Europe was limited to some degree by the Concert of Europe but between 1815 and 1845 Greece sought independence
from the centuries-long control it had experienced under the Ottoman Empire, a Belgian kingdom broke away from the kingdom of Holland into
which it had been incorporated in 1815 in association with the Congress of Vienna's resolve to provide France with a powerful neighbour
to its north that might better resist French expansion, and in France itself the legitimist Bourbons, who had proved to be very
reactionary, were replaced in a constitutional coup d'etat by their cousins of the House of Orleans.
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.
In 1803, Napoleon as the conqueror of much of western Europe, had instituted a re-organisation of the historic
Germanies reducing
the number of German states from over three
hundred to thirty nine by redistributing the ecclesiastical states and the Free Cities among the secular princes. These remaining thirty nine states were
grouped by him into a Confederation of the Rhine.
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.
Over time the Hapsburg realms had come to experience some degree of political represention principally through
an assembly or Diet intermittently held at the Habsburg's principal city of Vienna, and another political assembly or Diet
intermittently held just over the border
of the Hungarian kingdom in a city the Habsburgs would have known of as Pressburg, (but which is today's Slovak
capital - Bratislava).
The Pressburg Diet was not far from Vienna and had originally become established when the Ottomans still controlled
large tracts of formerly Hungarian lands from Buda the former Hungarian capital. The Hungarian kings had gained control over
the Croat kingdom in the twelfth century and a Croat assembly had met in the ancient Croat capital of Agram, (today's Zagreb),
and had sought to maintain communications under conditions of "personal union" where the sovereign King of Croatia was also
King of Hungary.
Peoples of the Habsburg Empire
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 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 European Revolutions of 1848 begin
The Springtime of Peoples
The revolution of 1848-1849, sometimes referred to as the Volkerfruhling or the Springtime of Peoples, can perhaps be seen
as a particularly
active phase in the challenge populist claims to political power had intermittently been
making against the authority traditionally exercised by the 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 sharply 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 - only some 170,000 wealthy men, (approximately one person in two hundred of an overall French population of 35 millions),
could legally vote.
Many French people felt excluded from any possibility of gaining
wealth, many also felt that the bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy of Louis Phillipe
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 20th February,
was cancelled at the last minute there was some serious disturbance in
the Paris streets during which extreme individuals opposed to the government intermittently attacked groups of soldiers and other soldiers
fatally injured protesting citizens. 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, Louis, 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 death of king Louis the hungarian nobility,
still hard pressed by Ottoman incursions, offered the crown to Ferdinand of Austria who
accepted it whilst undertaking to respect Hungarian / Magyar traditions and also
undertaking to try to win back the rich lands recently lost to the Ottomans.
After the critical Battle of Mohacs of 1526 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 Emperor of Austria, in his capacity as King of Hungary, authorised the convening of a Hungarian political
assembly, or Diet, in 1823. The representatives thereto sought the recognition of the Magyar tongue as being
appropriate for use in the administrative and judicial courts - this was assented to. It was also agreed
that Magyar should displace Latin and German as the principal language in the administrative and political life in the Hungarian kingdom.
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, although they formed the most numerous individual ethnic group in the Hungarian Kingdom,
and the traditionally
most powerful one, only comprised perhaps four-in-ten of the population of the kingdom which
was also peopled
by Croats, Serbs, Rumanians and others. In the event Magyar interests tended to insist on the full utilisation
of their tongue even in areas where the were not themselves in the majority.
The
nationalist, Kossuth, was prominent at a Diet of the Hungarian Kingdom
held at Pressburg
(Bratislava) in 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 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 Pressburg Diet of 3rd 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. ..."
Kossuth seemed to expect that the principal linkage with Austria would be that of a
personal union through the monarchy of Kings of Hungary who were simultaneously Emperors of Austria.
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.
That same day Frederick William rode in a stately progress through the streets of Berlin, prominently wearing a black-red-gold sash,
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. "
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."
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.
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 separate political estates (assemblies) for Bohemia and for Moravia and that there would be 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 fully 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, appearing in person at the Pressburg Diet,
formally accepted these changes on 11th April.
Agitations centred upon
Vienna itself had by this time already 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.
- 1 * This Page * - The European Revolutions of 1848 begin
- A broad outline of the background to the onset of the turmoils and a consideration of some of the early events.
- 2 The French Revolution of 1848
- A particular focus on France - as the influential Austrian minister Prince Metternich, who sought to encourage the re-establishment of "Order" in the wake of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic turmoils of 1789-1815, said:-"When France sneezes Europe catches a cold".
- 3 The Revolution of 1848 in the German Lands and central Europe
- "Germany" had a movement for a single parliament in 1848 and many central European would-be "nations" attempted
to assert a distinct existence separate from the dynastic sovereignties they had been living under.
- 4 The "Italian" Revolution of 1848
- A "liberal" Papacy after 1846 helps allow the embers of an "Italian" national aspiration to rekindle across the Italian Peninsula.
- 5 The Monarchs recover power 1848-1849
- Some instances of social and political extremism allow previously pro-reform liberal elements to join conservative elements in supporting
the return of traditional authority. Louis Napoleon, (who later became the Emperor Napoleon III), attains to power
in France offering social stability at home but ultimately follows policies productive of dramatic change in the wider European
structure of states and their sovereignty.
Other Popular European History pages
at Age-of-the-Sage
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:-
There is one mind common to all individual men...
Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is
illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by
nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest,
the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every
faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it in
appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact;
all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. Each law
in turn is made by circumstances predominant, and the limits of
nature give power to but one at a time. A man is the whole
encyclopaedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in
one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie
folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp,
kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application
of his manifold spirit to the manifold world.
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