The European Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848 represent a widespead emergence of situations, across much of Europe, where
populist human aspirations variously sought constitutional, liberal, nationalist or socialistic changes in society often at the
cost of traditionially influential dynastic or religious authorities.
We are pleased to make available a series of quite brief, but nevertheless informative, pages about these
European Revolutions of 1848 :-
- 1 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 in
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
- 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" (prior to 1848 having been a confederation of thirty-nine individually soverign Empires, Kingdoms, Electorates, Grand Duchies,
Duchies, Principalities and Free Cities), 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 European Revolutions - reactionary aftermath 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. Such nationalities living within the Habsburg Empire as the Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs and Roumanians,
find it more credible to look to the Emperor,
rather than to the democratised assemblies recently established in Vienna and in Budapest as a result of populist agitation, for the future protection
of their nationality.
The Austrian Emperor and many Kings and Dukes regain political powers. Louis Napoleon, (who later became the Emperor Napoleon III), elected as President
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.
- 6 Some detailed historical background to the European Revolutions of 1848
- Some quite detailed background information relating to the historical situation just prior to the onset of the European Revolutions of 1848
is available on this linked page.
The European Revolutions of 1848 begin
The Springtime of Peoples
The revolution of 1848-1849, (sometimes referred to in the German lands as the Völkerfrühling 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.
There were
however a number of other episodes elsewhere in Europe which indicated
the continued readiness of several states for involvement in revolution in the
years prior to 1848 itself. Constitutionalist uprisings occured in Spain in the 1820s and nationalist unrest occured in
the Low Countries and Polish lands in the 1830s.
As with several instances of revolution in Europe previously that
of 1848 was to have its major point of origin in France.
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 of some seventy or so that had been held in Paris and in the provinces to protest, within the law, 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.
At such politicised banquets participants could find the means to challange the government by participating
in toasts to such things as "electoral reform" or "parliamentary reform".
Although the banned banquet, now re-set for the 22nd 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 a group of socialists, armed and carrying red flags, gathered in front of the Hotel de Ville (or City Hall) in
Paris where their insistence secured a decree which proclaimed that the newly formed provisional government
would undertake to provide
work and would also recognise workers rights to combine.
"The Government of the French Republic binds itself to guarantee the livelihood of the workers by
providing work ... it will guarantee work for all citizens. It recognises that workers may organise in order to
enjoy the profits of their labour."
News of these events in Paris quickly reached other European cities as (what was then) a relatively new technology - The Telegraph System - allowed
rapid dissemination of such momentous political news as this.
Across Europe those supportive of various forms of political liberalisation or political radicalism tended to see the Parisian developments as
giving rise to an opportunity for the pressing of the case for liberalising or radical reform in their own cities and in their own
states.
Europe between 1815-1848
Peoples of the Habsburg Empire
(N.B. Lombardy and Venetia in the north of the Italian Peninsula were also under Habsburg sovereignty)
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, at Pressburg (today's Bratislava) 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 Slavic and other minorities.
By 1848
former losses of territory to the Ottoman empire had been recovered and certain lands 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, Roumanians 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
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 future of Hungary can never be secure while in the other provinces there exists a system of government in direct antagonism to every constitutional principle.
Our task it is to found a happier future on the brotherhood of all the Austrian races, and to substitute for the union enforced by bayonets and police the enduring bond of a
free constitution". ...
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 which culminated,
on 13th March, already designated as the date for the discussion of reform petitions in the Lower Austrian diet
(the legislative chamber where the
non-Hungarian lands of the empire held political debates), in public turmoils where several thousand university
students paraded through the streets of Vienna in support of far-reaching liberalising reforms.
These students were joined by many similarly dis-satisfied citizens.
After the leaders of the students had proceeded into a government building to present their petition some of their number
suspected that they had placed themselves in a situation where they could be captured by the authorities. After shouting out of
windows to their friends outside they were rescued, with some damage to property, from the building.
Archduke Albrecht, a member of the imperial family, who held an high military rank, subsequently ordered the crowd to disperse, and when they did not do so, further
ordered a company of soldiers to actually fire the weapons into the crowd - a number of injuries and a few fatalities occured.
Viennese citizens were alienated by this heavy handed action. The Emperor ordered a withdrawal of
soldiers to certain strong points within the city. Responsibilty for the maintainance
of order implicitly now fell on the Viennese Citizen Guard. It transpired, however, that the Citizen Guard tended to side with those seeking
reform rather than with the authorities. By the end of the day members of the Citizen Guard had opened the doors of the Civic Arsenal
and numerous weapons fell into the hands of disaffected students and citizens.
These events 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.
After mid-March when news of the recent serious civil unrest in Vienna, (including the fall from power of Metternich - much disliked by
liberals in the italian peninsula), reached Milan there was civil turmoil
where an estimated ten thousand persons actively sought the the freedom of the press, the replacement of the existing police force by a
newly formed civil guard and the convening of a national assembly.
The Austrian authorities in Lombardy were initially somewhat unprepared to meet these protests head-on and, after a captured Austrian
administrator made concessions to the protestors including the signing of proclamations of the establishment of a Provisional Government
and of a National Guard the Austrian military commander, Radetzky, continued to attempt to regain control with the result that over some
two or three days of intense combat.
In the event Radetzky's forces, estimated at 13,000, suffered from a significant number of
desertions whilst there was a real threat that the Sardinian-Piedmontese Kingdom, with its tens of thousands strong armed forces,
could intervene against the Austrian interest. Given these considerations the Austrian forces in Lombardy were withdrawn from Milan.
Radetzky subsequently decided to base his forces, in a defensive
posture, upon a formidable group of fortresses known as the Quadrilateral located towards the strategic Brenner pass, through which Austrian
forces traditionally crossed the Alps.
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.
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,
and Transylvania styled as "the Lands of the Crown of
St. Stephen" were deemed a single state. Croatian representation in the Hungarian Diet was increased from three to eighteen
delegates in recognition of an expected Croat participation in the proceedings of the Diet.
It was understood that the Diet of the Hungarian Kingdom
would in near future hold its sessions at Pesht (an important town lying alongside the river Danube and just across that river
from Buda - hence today's Budapest). The ministry there would be fully responsible for many areas of governance.
The Austrian Emperor, appearing in person at a final meeting of the Hungarian Diet in Pressburg,
formally accepted these changes on 11th April.
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.
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 demonstrations, 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 Academic Legion. It also happened that the
University was due to close down for the long summer vacation.
The radicalised students declined to accept this disbandment, they were supported in this by the National Guard and by tens of
thousands of Viennese workers. Some soldiers discharged their fire-arms at protesing citizens - resulting turmoils saw
formidable barricades, composed of pavements, street furniture, trees, railings, mattresses etc., being raised in many parts of the city.
At this point the government again yielded to the demands of the students and their allies amongst the citizens. A
socio-political climate appeared in Vienna where the government accepted that it should attempt to provide employment, where landlords
found themselves expected to reduce their rents and where workers sought enhanced wages together with shorter working hours. The
government was faced with a fall-off in tax revenues as normal trade contracted and resorted to the mortgaging of several key assets in
efforts to raise
monies to fund employment schemes.
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.
After news of the dramatic developments in Vienna in mid-March reached Agram (Zagreb), the Croatian capital, a long simmering
Croatian-Illyrian nationalism stirred into political life seeking a Croatian state with complete political independence from Hungary.
Although Hungarian representations to the Emperor produced an attempt, dated 7 May, to contain the Croat-Illyrian nationalism led
by a general named Josip Jellachic this was followed by an explicit refusal by Jellachic to submit to the authority of an Hungarian Diet
and the unconstitutional calling, on his own authority, for the meeting of a General Assembly of Croatia to take place in early June.
In a debate held in the Hungarian Diet in Pesht on 29 May an influential delegate proposed that some concessions
to the nationality of the numerous Roumanians within the Hungarian Kingdom was necessary to provide a basis for future co-operation.
Kossuth opposed this motion declaring that he knew nothing of a Roumanic, or a Croatian people, and recognised only
Hungarian citizens.
- 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 in
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
- 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 "Italian" Revolution of 1848
- A "liberal" Papacy after 1846 helps allow the embers of an "Italian" national aspiration to rekindle across the Italian Peninsula.
- 4 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.
- 5 The European Revolutions - reactionary aftermath 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. Such nationalities living within the Habsburg Empire as the Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs and Roumanians,
find it more credible to look to the Emperor,
rather than to the democratised assemblies recently established in Vienna and in Budapest as a result of populist agitation, for the future protection
of their nationality.
The Austrian Emperor and many Kings and Dukes regain political powers. Louis Napoleon, (who later became the Emperor Napoleon III), elected as President
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.
- 6 Some detailed historical background to the European Revolutions of 1848
- Some quite detailed background information relating to the historical situation just prior to the onset of the European Revolutions of 1848
is available on this linked page.
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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