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Chapter 20: Europe from 1815 to 1832 Nationalism Nationalism was the single most powerful ideology of the nineteenth century. Nationalism is a strong identification by a group of individuals with a political entity called a nation. Nationalism stresses that citizenship in a nation-state should be limited to one ethnic, cultural, religious, or identity group or, if the nation is multinational (as in the United States or Canada), citizenship should be the right of all the constituent minorities. Nationalism again became an important force in European politics after the 1970s, when the Soviet Union began to crumble and the Eastern European nations [even nationalities within Russia itself] - once dominated by the tsars and the soviets - began to demand independence. Early nineteenth century nationalism took aim at the agreements hammered out at the Congress of Vienna which tried to turn the political clock back to 1789, that is, before the French Revolution. Nationalist feelings were strongest in multinational states such as the Russian and Austrian Empires. Closely connected to nationalism was the concept of Popular Sovereignty because it demanded that authority in government be given to the people and not to heredity princes or to an aristocracy or to the wealthy bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, Popular Sovereignly often led to confusion or outright conflict because ethnic minorities also wanted their share of sovereignty. At any rate, it would be nationalist-thinking peoples and their leaders, who would create new nations in the nineteenth century. As the nineteenth century opened, small groups of nationalist-oriented writers or intellectuals would agitate for the creation of new nations, usually by pamphlets and newspapers. These leaders were often historians or writers who glorified an ethnic group’s history and cultural traditions. [Remember how Herder’s fascination with folk culture helped inspire German nationalism] Professors and other teachers often spread nationalistic ideas and, as elementary education grew, so did conflicting ideas about what language should be used in instruction (particularly in multinational countries). For example, in France and Italy, official versions of the national language were imposed on local areas and replaced local dialects. In parts of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, nationalists attempted to resurrect (bring back) earlier versions of language which they considered classical or purer. The goal of such educational nationalism was to standardize language into an official National Language. Much literary nationalism took its roots from the emergence of Print Culture (Chapter 17) in which the number of books, magazines and pamphlets soared (grew) dramatically. This kind of nationalism was of great importance in overcoming regional spoken dialects; moreover, in most European countries, mastery of the standardized version of a country’s language [written and spoken!] meant almost certain social and political advancement. The psychological effect of the growth of a uniform language was even more powerful and dramatic because it meant that people now began to define themselves in terms of their nation and not their local region, village or even religion. The Meaning of Nationhood There is no single answer to what various nationalists meant by nationhood. To many Germans and Italians, nationhood meant a unified Italy and Germany that eliminated all the small principalities, kingdoms and states that kept Germans and Italians divided. Other nationalists believed that every natural group of people [i.e., ethnicity] had a kind of divine right to nationhood. Polish nationalists, for example, suggested that, in Poland’s suffering, a future resurrection and new life (in a new and free Poland) would emerge, just like Christ suffered and rose from the dead. But the problem all minority nationalists faced was which ethnic groups could be considered nations. Thus, throughout the nineteenth century (and much of the twentieth century) many ethnic groups would unsuccessfully make their case for nationhood – a process that has speeded up with post World War II Decolonization. 1 The Six Areas of Nationalistic Unrest Great Britain (Ireland): The English domination of Ireland began in the late twelfth-century and continued especially with the savagery of Oliver Cromwell’s forces being the most terrible. Great Britain brought Ireland under its direct control in 1800, abolishing the separate Irish Parliament and allowing the Irish to elect members to the British Parliament – no Catholics, of course. Irish nationalists (almost always Catholic), however, wanted independence – or at least a greater share of self-government or home rule. This Irish Question would haunt Britain into and through the twentieth century. Germany: Ever since the days of the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was divided among hundreds of principalities. German nationalists wanted a unified German nation. They were dissatisfied with the multinational Austrian Empire as well as Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine. These nationalists would be divided in vision: either to have a united Germany with Austria or without. Austria: The Hapsburg Empire had struggled with competing ethnic groups for many centuries. Thus Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Romanian and other nationalists dreamed of their own independent nations. Many of these dreams would come true with the empire’s dissolution in 1919. Italy: Italy had not known national unity since the days of ancient Rome. In 1800, it was dominated by Spain in the south, the Papal States in the middle and Austria in the north along with a number of smaller states. Like many others, the Italian nationalists dreamed of a united Italy. The Russian Empire: Russia was a vast empire of many peoples and ethnicities but the principal area of unrest would be in Poland whose leaders remembered their days of independence. The Ottoman Empire (The Balkans): As the Ottoman Empire decayed and grew weaker, the Millet System (in which the empire’s various ethnic groups basically controlled their own local affairs) greatly encouraged the rise of nationalism. Liberalism Liberalism (derived from the Latin adjective liber meaning free) is the ideology that stresses the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberalism grew out of the Enlightenment and the equality first stressed by early liberals did not include those of the lower classes. The father of Liberalism is considered to be John Locke who championed legislative government (as opposed to monarchy) because he felt that a legislature embodied the will of the people. His Two Treatises of Government (1690) became the foundation of liberal ideology (or belief system); for Locke maintained that in the past people had given up their political rights to rulers to promote the common good. He stressed that although people had granted political rights to kings and elites, the people still retained their personal rights of life, liberty and property. Any ruler, who violated these rights, lost the right to hold his sovereignty and ought to be deposed. Thus, rulers logically derived their power or sovereignty from the consent of those whom they governed. If subjects withdrew their consent, they had the right to replace their rulers. Locke not only removed the divine out of the equation of government, he also set up the justification for revolution. In spite of the strong contrast in motivation and economics, the leaders of the American and French Revolutions used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of tyrannical rule and in this chapter we shall see how, in the early nineteenth century, liberal governments were established in nations across Europe, Latin America, and North America. It is important to understand that in the early nineteenth century, conservatives (those who favored a social order that evolved slowly and generally favored monarchy) saw liberals as those who challenged their own political, social or religious values. Thus liberals favored constitutionalism (government limited by law), representative democracy, free and fair elections, protection of human rights, capitalism with the right to own property, and freedom of religion. 2 Political Goals: Working from the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers, nineteenth century liberals sought to create political structures that would limit the arbitrary power of government against citizens, their property and freedoms. They agreed with Locke’s contractual views and that the legitimacy of government derived from the consent of the governed – and that included governmental ministers even in a monarchy. In order to attain these goals, nineteenth century liberals adopted written constitutions which made conservatives and monarchists nervous because (to them) constitutions smacked of Napoleonic autocracy. Like their Enlightenment forbearers, nineteenth century liberals almost always came from the educated, relatively wealthy people who were usually associated with the professions, education, commerce and manufacturing. Their motivation to achieve their goals was spurred on by the fact that they were excluded from the traditional social order because they lacked social (elite) pedigree; especially after the old order (Ancien-regime) was re-imposed after the Congress of Vienna. They believed that advancement in society should be based on talent and achievement and, although they demanded more political participation, they did not want full democracy. The core of what they wanted was to extend political rights to their propertied class and, as a result, nineteenth century liberals had no intention of including the peasant or urban working classes into benefits of their goals. Economic Goals: It is easy to understand the economic goals of nineteenth century liberals when we remember that they were the children of Adam Smith (the great proponent of Capitalism): the manufacturers of Great Britain, the landed and manufacturing class of France and the growing industrial entrepreneurs of Germany and Italy. Their goal was simple: establish free trade and abolish the economic restraints of Mercantilism along with the regulated economies of monarchies, enlightened or absolutist. They were opposed to established wages and laws protecting the laboring class because they saw them as simply one more commodity that could be bought and sold. In Great Britain, where the monarchy was already limited and most personal liberties had been secured, liberals pushed for more representative government. In France where the Code Napoleon had secured a modern legal system, liberals called for greater rights since the Code Napoleon had backed away from many of the ideals of the Revolution of 1789. In Germany and Austria, liberals faced much stronger resistance to their ideals because the old social divide continued to separate the aristocratic, land-owning classes from the middle class commercial and industrial entrepreneurs. As a result, since most German liberals favored a united Germany and looked to either Austria or Prussia to lead the way, they were more tolerant of strong monarchial power than their counterparts in France and Great Britain. German liberals believed that a united Germany would lead to a freer social and political order. Although liberalism and nationalism were not mutually exclusive, they often did not seek the same goals. Ethnic nationalists, when they were a majority, usually wanted their own ethnic group to dominate others as it was with the Magyars in Hungary. Ethnic nationalists, when they were a minority, however, struggled for political equality. But in either case, once freedom was achieved, ethnic minorities had no intention of establishing liberal political institutions. Nevertheless nationalism and liberalism were often compatible because representative government and liberal notions of equality often helped nationalists seeking freedom win the support of liberals in France and Great Britain. This compromise was adopted by many nationalists in Germany, Italy and the Austrian Empire. The Conservative Outlook The modern ideology of Conservatism arose as political and social theorists responded to the challenges of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. The word conservative comes from the Latin conservare which means to protect or conserve. Conservatives viewed society as an organism that changes (or ought to change) very slowly over the generations. 3 The Irish born but English political philosopher (and MP who supported the American Revolution), Edmund Burke (1729-1797), is considered to be the Father of Conservatism. Burke believed that society was a compact between a people’s ancestors, the present generation, and their descendents yet unborn. Burke acknowledged the need for change, but also that change must be by consensus (wide majority agreement). So as we learned in the last few chapters, Burke condemned the radical revolutionaries of the French Revolution but approved of the more conservative American Revolution. And it must never be forgotten that Burke supported the constitutional system of the British government. Thus, nineteenth century conservatives were hostile to the French Revolution and to Napoleon. But most nineteenth century conservatives differed from Burke’s constitutional views because nineteenth century conservatives were of the elite classes. Thus nineteenth century Conservatism was generally an alliance between monarchs, landed aristocrats and established churches. In earlier centuries, these groups had competed for power but by 1815, they were allies; sometimes reluctant allies but allies nonetheless. Churches also distrusted liberalism and both feared and hated Enlightenment ideas because rationalism often (but not always) undermined the teachings of revealed religion. So in spite of Burke, nineteenth century conservatives generally distrusted representative government fearing an attack on their property and influence in society. It was the same with written constitutions unless the conservatives could write the constitutions. Conservative aristocrats – in spite of the Congress of Vienna – did not get the message that the new ideologies of popular sovereignty and nationalism could not be locked away and the Ancien Régime restored. Led by Metternich and royalists, nineteenth century Conservatives believed that they could keep their old privileges and status only by suppressing their opponents. They could not think “outside the box!” Conservatism would eventually turn back to Burke’s constitutional vision but as the nineteenth century unfolded and progressed most conservatives did not understand that the day of the aristocrat [indeed monarchy itself] was dying. It is also important to note the difference between four terms: A LIBERAL is one who takes change for the norm and works though government or social groups to achieve change but a REVOLUTIONARY demands immediate and often violent change in a short period. A CONSERVATIVE believes in change which is moderated by reason, consensus and sensible thinking but a REACTIONARY believes in no political change whatsoever. Post Napoleonic-War Struggles Austria: Of all the victors over Napoleon and the ideas of the French Revolution, Austria could not make any compromises with nationalism or liberalism because both were already inspiring various national and ethnic groups with the Austrian Empire to demand independence. They were many: Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Italians, Croats – not forgetting the Germans who wanted unification and the Hungarians who wanted more sovereignty. Metternich and the Austrian government understood that any compromise or recognition of political rights for these groups would mean the probable dissolution of the empire. So, representative government was not even considered even as a pro-forma (i.e., a formality) option. Austria’s dilemma also meant that she had to dominate the newly created and loosely organized German Confederation (created by the Congress of Vienna) and prevent the creation of a unified German state or any organizing constitutions. Prussia: In the last chapter we saw how Frederick William III (r. 1797-1840) and his Junker nobility reluctantly allowed reform of the army and the land. But they were true reactionaries and hated reforms but allowed them because the architects (Stein and Hardenberg) worked to keep royal authority intact. These reforms served Prussia well and helped produce an army which helped to defeat Napoleon. After the Congress of Vienna, Frederick William III promised to allow some form of constitutional government. But he stalled and formally reneged (went back) on his pledge in 1817. Then, he created a New Council of State which was more efficient – and answerable to the king alone. 4 Southern German States: After the Congress of Vienna, three southern German states, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg, issued constitutions but none of them recognized popular sovereignty. Many students, inspired by liberalism, the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg and veterans of the struggles against Napoleon, continued to dream of a united Germany. They formed Burschenschaften (student associations) which laid foundations for a change in loyalty from the old provinces to a united German State. In 1817, one of these associations celebrated the Wartburg Festival (near the castle where Martin Luther had translated the New Testament into German) on the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig (which forced Napoleon’s abdication and drove him into his first exile on Elba) and the tercentenary (three hundredth anniversary) of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. Although the festival was peaceful, its militant nature and the public burning of reactionary books made many German rulers uneasy because of these nationalistic undertones. The Carlsbad Decrees: In 1819, another incident alarmed the reactionary (ultra-conservative) German rulers. A student and radical member of a Burschenschaften, Karl Sand, assassinated a conservative dramatist August von Kotzebue, who had ridiculed the Burschenschaften. Sand was tried, publically executed and became a nationalist hero and martyr. This incident so frightened Metternich that he was able to persuade many German states to issue the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, which dissolved the Burschenschaften, cracked down against the liberal press, and seriously restricted academic freedom in many states of the German Confederation. The next year, the German Confederation passed the Final Act which limited the subjects that could be discussed in constitutional assemblies. Great Britain After the Congress of Vienna, Great Britain experienced two years of bad harvests and high unemployment due to sailors and soldiers returning from war, along with out-of-work industrial workers. Moreover the Tories were in power and their Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, (Britain’s longest serving P M from 1812 to 1827) became known for his repressive measures to maintain and steer the country through the radicalism and unrest that followed. Liverpool and the Tories sought to protect the interests of the wealthy and landed classes. In 1815, Parliament passed a Corn Law (remember that in Oxford English, corn means all grains) to maintain high prices for domestic grain by levying import duties on foreign grain. The next year, Parliament abolished the income tax that only the wealthy paid and replaced it with an excise (sales) tax on consumer goods paid by both the wealthy and the poor. These laws showed that the British ruling class had abandoned their role as paternalistic protectors of the poor and the taxpaying class was no better in that they wanted the repeal of the Poor Law which provided relief to the poor and jobless. The result was that the poor and unemployed (or lower social orders) began to lose confidence in the government and demand political change. Mass meetings demanding reform in Parliament became common place. Republican clubs were organized to coordinate these demands and radical newspapers like William Cobbett’s Political Registrar led the attack. The government regarded Cobbett and other radicals (such as Major John Cartwright and Henry Hunt) as demagogues (leaders who make use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power) who were seducing (leading astray by persuasion and false promises) the lower classes away for their loyalty to their natural leaders. After an unruly meeting at Spa Fields in London, the government became alarmed - remembering well the sansculottes who freely killed aristocrats in the French Revolution, and passed the Coercion Acts of 1817 which temporarily suspended writs of habeas corpus (i.e. government officers must have proof before an arrest) and extended existing laws against seditious gatherings. 5 Peterloo and the Six Acts 1818 was a better year mostly because improved harvests brought political calm but by 1819 the lower classes were again impatient and demanding reform. In the industrial north, well-organized meetings called for reform and culminated on August 16th at Saint Peter’s Fields in the city of Manchester. As the meeting was about to begin, a magistrate ordered the militia to disperse the crowd. The result was pandemonium and the deaths of at least eleven people with many more wounded. The event came to be called the Peterloo Massacre, which was a sarcastic pun of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. Even though the tragedy was the result of incompetent local officials, the Liverpool government felt they must defend the officials; and take harsh measures to act once and for all against the radicals. So in December 1819 (ironically a few months after the Carlsbad Decrees), the Liverpool government dominated by the Tories over the opposition of the Whigs - passed a series of laws called the Six Acts which were intended to give public officials more power to restrain radical leaders from agitating (stirring up) the lower classes. The six acts were: 1. The Training Prevention Act, which made any person attending a meeting for the purpose of receiving training or drill in weapons liable to arrest. 2. The Seizure of Arms Act, which gave local magistrates the powers to search any private property for weapons and seize them and arrest the owners. 3. The Misdemeanors Act, which attempted to increase the speed of the administration of justice by reducing the opportunities for bail and allowing for speedier court processing. 4. The Seditious Meetings Prevention Act, which forbade large meetings of fifty or more unless properly authorized by local magistrates. 5. The Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act, which toughened existing laws for more punitive sentences for the authors of such writings. 6. The Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act, which extended and increased taxes to cover those publications which had escaped duty by publishing opinion and not news. Publishers also were required to post a bond for their behavior Cato Street Conspiracy: Two months after the passage of the Six Acts, the Cato Street Conspiracy was uncovered. Led by a mentally unstable man, Arthur Thistlewood, a group of extreme radicals plotted to blow up the entire British cabinet. The plot was discovered, the leaders arrested, tried and five executed. Although the plot had little chance of success, it nevertheless helped to discredit the reform movement in Great Britain. It is also important to note that because of continuing Whig opposition, as well as a calmer political climate in Europe, the Six Acts were eventually dropped. Perhaps the one most dangerous to liberty, the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act, was outright repealed in 1824. Bourbon Restoration in France After Napoleon’s first abdication, Bourbon rule was restored to France in the person of the younger brother of Louis XVI, who took the name Louis XVIII (the infant son of Louis XVI who died mysteriously was counted XVII). Louis XVIII had become a political realist in his exile and realized that he could not turn back the clock and agreed to become a monarch but under a constitution, called the Charter of 1814. The Charter provided for a hereditary monarchy and bicameral (two house) legislature. The monarch appointed the upper house, the Chamber of Peers, modeled after the British House of Lords. The lower house or Chamber of Deputies was elected by men of property. 6 The Charter guaranteed most of the rights enumerated in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789. The Roman Catholic Church was declared the official religion but religious toleration was also proclaimed. Perhaps most importantly for the thousands of French people who had profited from the revolution, the Charter promised not to challenge the property rights of the current landowners. Since Napoleon had restored much aristocratic property, Louis XVIII hoped reconcile those who had been ardent revolutionaries. Ultraroyalism: Louis XVIII’s spirit of compromise, however, did not sit well with the elites who had suffered during the revolution. They found a champion in the king’s younger brother, Charles, the Count of Artois who had been the most active of the Émigrés during the Revolution. These angry Ultraroyalists sought revenge. Within months of Waterloo, ultraroyalist factions in the south and west of France carried out the White Terror against former revolutionaries and supporters of Napoleon. The king was helpless to stop the massacres. Similar ultraroyalist sentiment was also found in the House of Deputies. In the elections of 1816, when the Ultraroyalists gained a majority in the House of Deputies, Louis dissolved the chamber. A second election produced a more moderate chamber and several years of give and take followed with the king making mild accommodations to the liberals. In February of 1820, Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duke of Berri, the son of Charles, Count of Artois, was assassinated and, even though the assassin had acted alone, the Ultraroyalists convinced the king that the murder was the result of his government’s cooperation with liberal politicians. And so the king responded with harsh measures. New electoral laws gave wealthy electors two votes. Press censorship was imposed and those suspected of dangerous political activity were arrested. In 1821, the Roman Catholic Church was given control of all secondary education. Thus by the early 1820s, constitutionalism had been worn away and liberals driven out of politics. The Count of Artois and his followers sensed victory when Louis XVIII died in 1824 because Charles now became King Charles X. However his ultraroyalist policies would lead to another French Revolution in 1830. The Congress System At the Congress of Vienna, the victors and soon France had agreed to consult with each other on matters affecting Europe as a whole. This was done through a series of congresses but soon became informal consultations between nations. This new arrangement was known as The Concert of Europe. Its goal was to prevent one nation from taking major international action without working with the other nations – in other words, to preserve the Balance of Power! The Concert continued to function until the third quarter of the century when the unification of Germany and nationalist agitation weakened the congress system. In the years immediately following the Congress of Vienna, the congresses operated particularly well. In 1818, the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the four victorious nations (The Quadruple Alliance) agreed to remove their troops from France, which had paid its reparations, and readmitted to good standing among the Concert of Europe making the Quadruple Alliance the Quintuple Alliance. The greatest friction during this early period came about when Tsar Alexander I suggested that the Quadruple Alliance agree to uphold the existing boundary lines drawn by the Congress of Vienna. The British foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, rejected the proposal and maintained that the Quadruple Alliance had been intended only to prevent future French aggression – and now France was a member of the alliance. 7 The Spanish Revolution of 1820 When Ferdinand VII was restored to the Spanish throne in 1814, he pledged to govern Spain by a written constitution. But once in power, he ignored his promise, dissolved the Spanish parliament (or Cortés) and ruled as an autocrat. In 1820, army officers, about to be sent to Spain’s colonies in order to suppress Creole rebellions, themselves rebelled against the king. So Ferdinand again pledged to rule by a written constitution. He barely kept his throne and groveled before the revolutionary officers. At least for a while, the revolution had succeeded. In the same year, however, a revolution broke out in Naples and the King of the Two Sicilies quickly accepted a constitution. There were other revolts in Italy but none were successful. These events horrified and frightened Metternich especially since Austria hoped to dominate Italy in order to provide a buffer against the possible spread of revolution in southern Europe. The members of the Quadruple Alliance were divided as what to do. Austria wanted to directly intervene but Great Britain opposed any intervention in either Italy or Spain. So Metternich met with Prussia and Russia (with unofficial French and British delegates) at the Congress of Troppau in late 1820 where the Protocol of Troppau was issued. The protocol (declaration) asserted that stable governments might intervene to restore order in countries undergoing revolutions. But the Congress, especially Alexander I, stopped short of authorizing direct Austrian intervention. The necessary authorization was obtained in 1821 at the Congress of Laibach and Austrian troops quickly attacked Naples and restored the king and his absolutist government. The Congress of Verona In late 1822, the five members of the Quintuple Alliance (Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia) met in Verona in northern Italy. It would be the last meeting of the alliance members (but not the end of the congress system) and its primary purpose was to resolve the situation in Spain. Again, Great Britain balked at intervention in Spain. Castlereagh had committed suicide just before the conference began and Britain was now represented by its new foreign minister, George Canning (1770-1827), who was even less sympathetic to Metternich’s goals and effectively withdrew Great Britain from continental affairs. Austria, Prussia and Russia, however, agreed to support a French military intervention in Spain which took place in 1823, suppressing the rebellion and restoring Ferdinand to power. It is important to note that something new happened in international European politics during the French intervention and that was that the French did not use its intervention in Spain to expand its influence or take territory from Spain. This was the point of the congress system that came out of the Congress of Vienna: namely, to restore or preserve conservative regimes and not to conquer new territory. This new international restraint through formal and informal discussion prevented war among the great powers until the middle of the century and averted a general war until the Great War of 1914. The Congress of Verona and the Spanish intervention also split Great Britain from the continental powers. George Canning was far more interested in British commerce than Castlereagh had been and so Britain sought to stop the spread of European reactionary politics in the Spanish colonies of the new world who were fighting their wars of independence. Canning’s goal was the break Spain’s old trading monopoly with its colonies and open Latin America to British trade. To that end, Canning supported the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 by which American President James Monroe prohibited further colonization and intervention by European powers in the Americas. Great Britain would gain no new territory but her commercial interests would dominate Latin America throughout the rest of the century. It has been said that Canning finally won the War of Jenkins’ Ear, the underlying cause of which was Great Britain’s determination to break Spain’s economic monopoly over her colonies. 8 Revolts in the Balkans The Greek Revolution of 1821 The Greek War of Independence was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1832. Following the fall of the Constantinople in 1453, most of Greece came under Ottoman rule. During this time, there were frequent revolts by Greeks attempting to gain independence, usually with brutal Turkish reprisals. In 1814, a secret organization called the Filiki Eteria was founded to liberate the Greeks. A series of revolts broke out in 1821and the Greeks won much territory and even built a navy which hindered the Ottomans from sending reinforcements. By 1825 however, the Ottomans, with aid and troops from Muhammad Ali of Egypt, gained the upper hand and retook much of the Greek mainland. But then, after much deliberation, Russia, Great Britain and France, decided that military intervention was in their best interest. They sent ships and in 1827 destroyed an Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino. Then French troops landed on the mainland and by 1828 had liberated most of central Greece. The Greek War of Independence roused Europe. They considered the Ancient Greeks the forbearers of European culture. European liberals, frustrated at their lack of political progress, hoped to see the formation of a New Greek democracy. Lord Byron, the British Romantic poet, went to Greece, fought with the rebels and died of Cholera. Philhellenic (pro-Greek) societies sprang up all over Europe and saw Greek independence as retribution for Asian and Islamic despotism. The major powers were more cynical, as they all had an interest in the Balkans. Their interest was spurred by what came to be called the Eastern Question, that is, what should European powers do about the Ottoman inability to change and grow technologically? Russia particularly wanted to conquer Constantinople and the Balkan portion of the empire to add to her own empire. Austria also coveted Balkan territory. Britain and France opposed these expansions and were concerned about their commercial interests. The bottom line was that the European powers – even after the Greek Revolution - helped prop up the Ottomans. Nevertheless, the big three (Russia, Britain and France) saw that an independent Greece would be to their advantage. In 1827, the three powers signed the Treaty of London which demanded that the Ottoman Turks recognize Greek independence which was the basis of their sending their ships and troops to intervene. The next year Russia invaded what is now Romania and by the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) forced the Ottomans to recognize their territorial acquisitions. The treaty also forced the Ottomans to recognize the authority of the Big Three to decide the fate of Greece. Finally in 1830, a second Treaty of London declared Greece an independent kingdom and two years later the son of the king of Bavaria, Otto I (r. 1832-1862), was elected king of the Hellenes. Serbian Independence 1830 also saw Serbian Independence. The Serbs were a Slavic people who had, like the Greeks, chafed under Ottoman conquest. Since the late eighteenth century, Serbia had agitated for independence and received support from Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. Between 1804 and 1813, the Serbian patriot, Kara George, led a guerrilla war, the First Serbian Uprising, but failed to win Serbian freedom. Then in 1815, Miloš Obrenovitch (1780-1860) led the Second Serbian Uprising. By 1817 the Turks defeated his army, but not before he negotiated greater autonomy for most of Serbia with himself as the de facto leader. In 1830, the Ottomans granted Serbia independence and by the later 1830s, Serbia had won full diplomatic recognition. 9 Miloš Obrenovitch, now the Serbian hereditary prince, kept pressuring the Ottomans to include more Serbian areas into the new Serbia – and he had much success. Serbia faced obstacles however; among them were stabilizing the government; pressuring Austria to free Serbians in the Austrian Empire; and the status of Muslim minorities. In 1856, Serbia came under the protection of the great powers but Russia, Slavic herself, would continue to see herself as Serbia’s special protector, a relationship that would continue until the Great War of 1914. The Haitian Revolution The only successful slave revolt in history took place on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in the aftermath of the French Revolution. In the 18th century Hispaniola was divided into a Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and a French colony, Saint-Dominique. The island was one of the richest colonies in all the Caribbean: its sugar, coffee and cotton accounted for almost one third of France’s foreign trade. In 1789, Saint- Dominique was inhabited by 40,000 white settlers, 30,000 Gens de Couleur (free people of color who usually toiled their own small farms, sometimes with a few slaves) and some 500,000 black slaves who worked under brutal conditions on white run plantations. In marginal areas, there were also large numbers of maroons. During the American War for Independence, the French sent about 800 Gens de Couleur to fight in North America. When they returned they brought back Enlightenment ideas such as equality and contractual government. When the French Revolution broke out, the whites wanted independence from France and the Gens de Couleur wanted political equality with the white settlers. So, the white settlers began to govern themselves but refused to include the Gens de Couleur. By 1791, civil war broke out between the two groups. The conflict took an unexpected and violent turn of events when a Voodoo priest, Boukman, organized a slave revolt. In August 1791, he led some 12,000 slaves on a rampage killing white settlers, burning their homes and destroying their plantations. Within weeks the slave army grew to 100,000 and maroons joined the fighting. French, British and Spanish troops tried to restore order. Boukman was killed, but the slaves eventually overcame the whites, the Gens de Couleur and the foreign armies; and their successes were due to the leadership of Toussaint Louverture (1744-1803). Toussaint Louverture was the son of slaves who learned to read and write from a Catholic priest. Because of his education he became a domestic servant and rose to the position of a livestock manger on a plantation. When the slave revolt broke out he helped his masters escape, then he joined the rebels. A skilled organizer, he built a strong, disciplined army. He fought well and played politics with the Europeans well. By 1797, he controlled most of Saint-Domingue. Then Napoleon sent 20,000 soldiers to quell the rebellion. Louverture was captured in died of maltreatment in a French jail. Back in Saint-Dominique, however, yellow fever broke out and ravaged the French Army, so that Louverture’s lieutenants, especially Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1785-1806), were able to drive the French off the island. In 1803, the former slaves declared independence and 1804 became the Republic of Haiti. After the United States, Haiti was the second republic in the Americas. Independence in Latin America We have seen different kinds of revolutions. We have seen revolutions of the mind: Enlightenment, Liberalism, and even Conservatism .We have seen women struggle for sexual equality. We have seen political revolution in Great Britain and the British North American colonies as the middle class demanded a larger share of government. We have seen the revolutions of social restructuring in the bloody French and Haitian Revolutions. We have seen the emergence of nationalism and wars for independence in Greece and Serbia. Now in Latin America we will study another kind of revolution, a revolution of the creoles by the creoles for the creoles. 10 In 1800, there were three broad classes of people in the Iberian colonies: first, there were about 30,000 Peninsulares (colonial officials born in Spain or Portugal); second, there were about 3.5 million Creoles, (Europeans born in the New World, who were growing in wealth and power); and finally there were about 10 million of the less privileged classes: slaves, indigenous peoples, Mestizos (native American and European) and mulattos (African and European). We have already noted that, of these lower groups, the Mestizos would grow in number and wealth and slowly integrate into Creole society. It was the Creoles who had benefited the most during the eighteenth century, establishing businesses and plantations. This Creole elite was composed of merchants, landowners and professionals. Like the British colonists in North America, they not only resented their inability to share in the governing of the colonies but also heavy Spanish taxation. Creole merchants wanted to trade freely with Europe and the Americas so that they would benefit, not the Spanish. They too were affected by Enlightenment thinking, more along American lines rather than French. They wanted to displace the Peninsulares but unlike the Americans, had no intention of sharing new freedoms with lesser classes. So between 1810 and 1825, it was the Creoles who led movements that brought independence to the Iberian colonies and established themselves as Euro-American Elites or the dominant people in their societies. It was Napoleon’s occupation of Spain and Portugal and his establishment of liberal monarchies, which created the first blow to Spanish royal authority in the Iberian colonies. The Creole elite feared a liberal Napoleonic monarchy would try to impose liberal reforms in Mexico. So between 1808 and 1810, Creoles set up juntas (or political committees) that claimed the right to govern their own lands. Some hypocritically claimed authority in the name of the king but after the juntas were established, the authority of the Peninsulares evaporated and Spain never again effectively reestablished its authority in the New World. In New Spain which stretched from California to Central America, a local governing junta was organized in 1808. But before any serious actions were taken by the junta, a serious revolt was led by a Mexican Creole priest, Miguel de Hidalgo (1753-1811), who rallied indigenous peoples and mestizos against the Spanish. He also terrified the Creoles when he called for a revolutionary-government, which would redistribute wealth, give equality to the peasants, and return the land stolen from the indigenous peoples. Creole forces soon captured and executed Hidalgo in 1811. He was succeeded by a Mestizo priest, Jose Pavon (1765-1815) who was far more radical and extended the rebellion until 1815 when he was captured and executed. These rebellions which demanded social reform united all conservative political groups in Mexico, both Creole and Spanish. They were terrified that any social reform would diminish their privileges. So in 1821, both groups rallied behind a royalist general, Augustin de Iturbide, (1783-1824), who pushed out the Spanish and proclaimed himself Emperor of Mexico. He was a poor administrator, however, and was deposed in 1824 by his fellow Creoles, who proclaimed a Mexican Republic. Two years later, the southern regions of Mexico declared their independence and formed a Central American Federation which lasted until 1838, when it split into the independent countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In South America the leader of the Creole revolutionaries was Simon Bolivar (1783-1830). Bolivar was born in Caracas in modern Venezuela and was a fervent republican steeped in the Enlightenment. Inspired by George Washington, he began the rebellion against Spain in 1811. Like Washington’s campaigns, the early days of the rebellion were difficult with many setbacks. But in 1819, he assembled an army that surprised and crushed the Spanish army in Colombia and quickly freed what is today Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. 11 He then coordinated his efforts with the Creole leaders Jose de San Martin (1778-1850) in Argentina and Bernardo O’Higgins (1778-1842) in Chile. By 1824, Creole armies had rid South America of Spanish forces. Bolivar’s goal was to create a confederation like the United States and in the 1820s Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador formed a federation called Gran Colombia, but it soon began to unravel. Bolivar was disgusted and declared South America ungovernable. He sadly died of Tuberculosis on his way to self-imposed exile in Europe. Independence came to Brazil at the same time but in a different manner. When Napoleon occupied Portugal, the royal court fled to Brazil and ruled there. When they were able to return to Portugal in 1821, the king (John VI) left his son Pedro to rule in Brazil. The next year Pedro heeded the demands of the creoles for independence and agreed to their demands. He refused his father’s command to return to Portugal and became Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (r. 1822-1834). It is crucial to remember that, in spite of Independence, the Creole elites did nothing to grant political rights to their social inferiors. When the Peninsulares returned to Europe, Latin American society remained as rigid and stratified as ever. The new Creole states were essentially conservative: they did not abolish slavery; they supported the Roman Catholic Church and they took privilege for themselves at the expense of the lower classes. Challenges to the Conservative Order in Europe In the early 1820s, the conservative order had been generally successful is resisting liberalism. The Greek, Serbian and Latin American revolutions had not occurred in the center of the European affairs and in many ways had conservative elements, such as Creole domination in the Americas and the establishment of a monarchy under a German prince in Greece. But in the second half of the 1820s, liberal and nationalist challenges grew stronger culminating in the Revolutions of 1830 on the continent and the passage of the Great Reform Bill in Great Britain in 1832. Nicholas I of Russia In 1825, Alexander I, who had first experimented with Enlightenment ideals but later suppressed both liberalism and nationalism, died under mysterious circumstances. [Some historians maintain that he faked his death and became a wandering holy man in Siberia named Feodor Kuzmich] Many of his officers had learned Enlightenment ideas during the wars. Most were well aware of how backward Russia was: intellectually, economically and technologically; and developed reformist sympathies. There were many groups but they all wanted an end to serfdom and the establishment of representative government and even constitutional monarchy. They all agreed that Russia’s government had to embrace change. Alexander died childless, so the succession passed to his next brother, the grand duke Constantine, who was commander of Russian forces in Poland. But Constantine had annulled his first marriage in 1820, married a Polish countess and secretly renounced his claim to the throne. So simultaneously, the third son, Grand Duke Nicholas had Constantine proclaimed emperor in St. Petersburg, while in Warsaw Constantine formally abdicated the throne. In the confusion that followed some junior army officers in the Moscow regiment refused to swear loyalty to Nicholas and called for both a constitution and Constantine as tsar. The date was December 26th and so this rebellion came to be called the Decembrist Revolt. When attempts to settle the standoff failed, Nicholas ordered loyal cavalry and artillery units to disperse the rebels and sixty people were killed in the fighting. Nicholas personally conducted an investigation and five of the plotters were executed with more than a hundred more exiled to Siberia. The Decembrists were the first to lead a rebellion for political goals in modern Russian history and they became martyrs for the cause of constitutional government in Russia. 12 Nicholas was neither ignorant nor a bigot but he became a reactionary symbol in Russia. Under Nicholas, the government exercised censorship and other controls over education and public life in order to keep autocracy safe. But, tragically for Russia, Nicholas kept Russia agricultural and did not industrialize – especially at a time when Western Europe was experiencing dramatic industrial and technological growth. In place of reform, Nicolas and his advisors embraced a program called Official Nationality that urged Russians to form their national identity around the Orthodox Church, the absolute authority of the tsar and the glorification of the Russian nationality. Hence the slogan that came to be associated with Nicholas: Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationalism. The Polish Revolt Nicholas’ autocracy was also apparent in his treatment of the Poles. Most of Poland which had been partitioned in the late eighteenth century remained under Russian control but was, by the Congress of Vienna, granted a constitutional government with its own diet. Both Alexander and Nicholas delegated their brother Constantine to run Poland’s government. It was not a happy relationship and Polish nationalists agitated for freedom. Then in late 1830, a small insurrection of soldiers and students broke out in rioting in Warsaw and the rebellion spread throughout the country. The diet deposed Nicholas as king of Poland. Nicholas immediately invaded Poland, suppressed the revolt and issued the Organic Statute which proclaimed Poland an integral part of the Russian Empire. Although the Statute guaranteed Polish liberties, the Russians ignored them and Nicholas made Russia the Gendarme of Europe, ready to supply troops to suppress liberal or nationalist movements. Revolution in France The Polish revolt in late 1830 took its genesis from what happened in France six months earlier. As we just saw, when Louis XVIII died in 1824, he was succeeded by his brother (the youngest brother of the beheaded Louis XVI), Charles X. Louis had been willing to rule as a constitutional monarch but Charles believed in the Divine Right of Kings. Charles X was a reactionary or extreme ultraconservative, that is, he – embittered by the events of the French Revolution – wanted no change socially or politically. Charles and his supporters, who were called Ultraroyalists (which means more royal than the king), wanted a full restoration of the Ancien Régime and opposed all forms of constitutional government. Charles’ first action was to have the Chamber of Deputies compensate (indemnify) the aristocrats who had lost land during the French Revolution. He did this by lowering the interest rates on government bonds which meant bondholders got less interest and the government kept more money which Charles used to pay an annual payments to survivors of those who had lost property. The bondholders felt cheated and bitterly resented the king’s action. Charles also restored the Law of Primogeniture whereby the oldest son of an aristocrat inherited the family domains. Finally, Charles supported the Catholic Church by enacting a law that made sacrilege (gross irreverence or desecration of a sacred object) subject to imprisonment or even death. Needless to say, all these actions infuriated the liberals. In the elections of 1827, the liberals gained enough seats that the king was forced to compromise. He was forced to appoint fewer conservative cabinet ministers, his ministers were forced to ease their dominance over education and laws against the press were softened. But the liberals were not satisfied because they wanted a truly constitutional government. Then in 1829, the king replaced his moderate ministers with an ultraroyalist cabinet headed by the Prince de Polignac (1780-1847). The liberals – in desperation – began to consider revolution and openly negotiated with the more liberal Orléans branch of the Royal Family. 13 In July 1830, the king called for new elections and the liberals won an even larger majority than in 1827. Instead of accepting the new Chamber of Deputies, Charles and his ultraroyalist ministers decided to seize power. In June/July, Polignac had sent an expedition to capture the port of Algiers in North Africa which was infested with pirates. With the news of the victory creating a nationalistic euphoria, Charles issued the Four Ordinances on July 25th which was in effect a royal coup d’ état. The Four Ordinances restricted freedom of the press, dissolved the recently elected Chamber of Deputies, limited the franchise (right to vote) to the wealthiest people and called for new elections. The Four Ordinances provoked the Revolution of 1830 as the people rose up in rebellion. Liberal newspapers called for a rejection of Charles and his actions. The workers of Paris – having suffered from an economic downturn since 1827 – set up barricades in the streets. The king called in the army and in the fighting that followed 1,800 people were killed and the army was unable to gain control of Paris. So on August 2nd, Charles X abdicated and went into exile in England. The Chamber of Deputies named a new ministry composed of constitutional monarchists. They first offered a dictatorship to the aging hero of the Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette, but he declined and supported bid of the Duke of Orleans who became Louis Philippe who replaced Charles X as king. It is important to understand that the liberals who turned their back on the House of Bourbon, drove Charles X into exile and called his cousin Louis Philippe to be their king did not want another French Republic like one created by the Revolution of 1789. They wanted no sans-culottes or Jacobean violence. They knew that if Charles X had had sufficient troops, he might have prevailed. This second French Revolution or the July Revolution (as it came to be called) transformed France from a constitutional monarchy based on heredity right to a constitutional monarchy based on popular sovereignty. The revolution succeeded because two groups – the hard pressed workers and the prosperous middle class – needed each other but it would not be very long before they discovered that they had fundamentally different goals. The poor wanted job protection and better wages while the middle classes wanted to keep their wealth and privileges. The Citizen King Louis Philippe recognized that France had changed much so he styled himself “King of the French” not “King of France.” The Tricolor replaced the Fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons. Louis called himself the Citizen King and so for Louis the constitution was a right of the people not a concession of the king to the people. Under Louis, the Catholic religion became the religion of the majority, not the state religion and his government was decidedly anticlerical. Censorship was abolished. The franchise was widened. The king worked with the House of Deputies; he did not dictate to them. The July Revolution was conservative but even though hereditary peerage was abolished, the influence of the aristocracy and wealthy continued. And sadly, Louis could not control corruption as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The results increased social stresses which would cause Louis to lose his throne in 1848. In June 1832, an uprising took place in Paris during the funeral of Jean Maximilien Lamarque, one of Napoleon’s popular generals. This June Rebellion was antimonarchist in nature and led mostly by students and working people. Government troops were called in, 800 people were killed and the rebellion was crushed. (This is the rebellion that Victor Hugo described in his novel Les Misérables.) One other interesting note was the France kept control of Algiers and slowly continued to occupy Algeria for the sake of French merchants and soldiers who quickly replaced the Ottoman administration – and then penetrated deeper south into Africa where the Ottomans had never gone. Many French would soon regard Algeria – in spite of its hugely non-French and Muslim population – as an integral part of France. 14 Belgium becomes Independent The July Revolution also had repercussions in nearby Belgium. In Chapter 12, we saw that in 1579 the Dutch by the Treaty of Utrecht declared independence from Spain but by the Treaty of Arras the same year the southern provinces, basically modern Belgium, remained under Spanish rule. In 1713, Belgium was transferred to the Austrian Habsburgs after the War of the Spanish Succession and thus Belgium was called the Austrian Netherlands from 1713 to 1794. During the Napoleonic era, Belgium was absorbed into France and in 1815 - by the terms of the Congress of Vienna – Belgium was merged into the Kingdom of Holland. But the two countries had different languages, customs and religions – and the Belgian nobility never accepted their absorption into the Kingdom of the Netherlands. On August 25, 1830, riots broke out in Brussels after the performance of La Muette de Portici (The Dumb [mute] Girl of Portici), an opera about a rebellion in Naples against Spanish rule. The municipal authorities of Brussels and the bourgeoisie formed a provisional national government. The Dutch first thought that the rebellion would die down and promised a general amnesty but when compromise failed, King William I of Holland (remember William III who became King of England was Stadholder, not king) invaded Belgium. By November, the Dutch were defeated and a Belgian national congress wrote a liberal constitution which was issued in 1831. Although the major powers of Europe saw the Belgian revolution as upsetting the agreements of the Congress of Vienna, they were either unable or not inclined to aid the Dutch. Russia was preoccupied with the Polish revolt; Prussia and other German states were dealing with lesser uprisings and the Austrians had their hands full putting down revolts in Italy. Louis Philippe wanted an independent Belgium in hopes that he could dominate it while Britain was not opposed to an independent Belgium, as long as it was free of foreign domination. So at the 1830 London Conference, Lord Palmerston (1784-1865), the British Foreign Minister, persuaded representatives of the major powers to recognize Belgium as a neutral state. In July, 1831, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg Gotha (he was related to the English royal family and married to the daughter of Louis Philippe) became Leopold I, King of the Belgians. It is important to understand that all the major powers guaranteed Belgian neutrality by an 1839 London Treaty – an treaty that would help to precipitate World War I in 1914. The Great Reform Bill in Great Britain The year 1830 also began a period of reform in Great Britain. The son of George III, George IV (r. 1820-1830) died that year and was succeeded by his brother William IV (1830-1837) and that required the calling of Parliamentary elections which produced a Parliament that debated the first major bill to reform Parliament. But the passage of the Great Reform Bill in 1832 was not a result of events on the continent but of events unique to Great Britain. The spirit of compromise necessary to reform Parliament rested on several factors. First, the commercial and industrial classes were larger in Great Britain than on the continent. No government could ignore their interests without harming British prosperity. Second, Britain’s liberal Whig aristocrats, who regarded themselves as the protectors of constitutional liberty, had long favored moderate reforms that would make radical or revolutionary methods unnecessary. Third, British law, tradition and public opinion were strongly favorable to the concept of civil liberty. This was seen as early as 1820, when Lord Liverpool after the passage of the notorious Six Acts, wisely reformed his cabinet with men, who, although conservative, still believed it was necessary to adapt to changing social and economic conditions. 15 Events in Ireland also played a role in the passage of an important reform bill for Ireland and ultimately the Great Reform Bill. England was determined to keep control in Ireland and its relationship to Ireland can be compared to that of Russia to Poland or Austria to many of its national minorities. In 1800, afraid of a rebellion like the one of 1798 or that Napoleon might use Ireland as a base from which to attack Great Britain, William Pitt the Younger got Parliament to pass the Act of Union between Ireland and England. Ireland now sent one hundred members to the House of Commons but they could only be Protestants from an overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland. During the 1820s, Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) organized Irish nationalists into the Catholic Association to agitate for Catholic emancipation (i.e., reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Irish Catholics such as free exercise of their religion, holding public office or serving in the army). In 1828, he secured his own election to Parliament where he could not, of course, take his seat. The Duke of Wellington (the victor of Waterloo and now Prime Minister) was caught in a dilemma. If O’Connell were seated, it might lead to Ireland electing larger and larger numbers of Catholic members; but if he were not seated, civil war might erupt in Ireland. So in 1829, Wellington and Sir Robert Peel persuaded Parliament to pass the Catholic Emancipation Act so that Roman Catholics could now become members of Parliament. Along with the repeal of similar restrictions against Protestant Nonconformists, the Anglican monopoly controlling Parliament ended. The irony was that the Catholic Emancipation Act was a liberal bill passed by Parliament for a conservative reason: to keep control of Ireland. And it was not as liberal as might be thought. The act allowed only the wealthier Irish to vote. It also had repercussions in London because it alienated many of Wellington’s Anglican Tory supporters in the House of Commons. So when the elections of 1830 took place upon the accession of William IV, many supporters of Parliamentary reform were re-elected and even many Tories supported reform measures because they thought only a thoroughly corrupt Parliament could have passed the Catholic Emancipation Act. As a result the Tories were badly divided, Wellington was given the unflattering title of the “Iron Duke”, his government collapsed and William IV turned to the leader of the Whigs, Earl Grey (1764-1845) to form a government. The Whigs then presented a reform bill that had two broad goals. The first was to replace “rotten boroughs” (or boroughs [voting districts] that had few voters) with newly created boroughs that redistributed representation in Parliament to major population centers or manufacturing districts. The second was to increase the number of voters in England and Wales by about fifty percent by lessening the qualifications for voting. At first, the House of Lord refused but the king intervened and appointed enough new Lords so that the Reform Bill passed in both houses. The bottom line was that the Great Reform Bill of 1832 allowed well-to-do men of the middle class to vote. But still only a small percentage of males could vote and Britain was still a long way from democracy as we understand it. Moreover, women were not given franchise and some members of the working class actually lost their right to vote because certain old franchise rights were abolished. On the positive side, however, new urban boroughs were created and given a voice in the House of Commons; on the negative side, the middle class did not gain ground because for every new urban electoral district created, a new rural district was created which the aristocracy dominated. Although it was far from perfect, the Great Reform Bill laid the groundwork for further reforms and expanding the franchise to even more potential voters. 16