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Reaction, Revolution and
Romanticism
1815 – 1850
The Conservative Order
 The Governments of
Britain, Austria, Russia
and Prussia, as well as
the Royalists in
France, all sought to
return to the prerevolutionary status
quo.
 None of the rulers
were naïve enough
to believe that all of
the revolutionary
changes could be
reversed, but they
meant to contain the
forces of revolution.
The Peace Settlement
The Quadruple Alliance was
formed even before Napoleon’s
defeat in order to both defeat the
French and to ensure a lasting
peace after the war.
After Napoleon's
defeat, the
Quadruple Alliance
restored the old
Bourbon monarchy
to France in the
person of Louis
XVIII.
The Congress of Vienna
Representatives of all
the European powers,
except Turkey,
assembled at the
Congress at Vienna in
September of 1814 to
discuss the post-war
situation.
The
Dancing
Congress
The Hundred Days
The Congress
was interrupted
in February
1815 by
Napoleon's
escape from
Elba.
The Great Powers
Most conspicuous
among the
numerous monarchs
who attended the
Congress was
Alexander I,
emperor of Russia.
 The Tsar supported
such generally
unpopular causes as
the unification of the
German states and
the establishment of
a constitutional
government in
Poland.
Great Britain
 Great Britain was
represented mainly by
its foreign minister
Robert Stewart,
Viscount Castlereagh,
and by the general and
statesman Arthur
Wellesley, 1st duke of
Wellington.
Castlereagh
The Duke of
Wellington
France
 Although the major
powers had agreed that
France should not be
party to any important
decisions, the French
diplomat Charles
Maurice de Talleyrand
succeeded in securing
an equal share in the
deliberations.
Prussia
The principal
delegate from
Prussia was
Prince Karl
August von
Hardenberg.
Austria
 By far, the foreign
minister and
diplomat who
dominated the
Congress of Vienna
was Klemens von
Metternich of
Austria.
Metternich pursued the
policy of legitimacy,
meaning he endeavored
to restore legitimate
monarchs to the thrones
of every major
European power in
order to preserve
traditional institutions
and values.
Metternich
believed
European
monarchs shared
the common
interest of
stability.
 In order to maintain
stability, the Congress
of Vienna created
policies that would
maintain the balance
of power among the
members of the
Quadruple Alliance.
The Polish Question
In Poland the
policy of
Legitimacy was
ignored in favor
of more practical
politics.
The Prussians and Austrians
were both granted small parts of
Poland and the rest of the Grand
Duchy was made the Kingdom
of Poland under the hereditary
rule of the Romanovs of Russia.
The French Question
The policy of maintaining the
balance of power also dictated
the post-war treatment of
France.
The fear that France would
someday again upset the
peace of Europe led to the
creation of buffer states
around France.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands
The territory of the Dutch
Republic and the Austrian
Netherlands of Belgium were
combined under the hereditary
rule of King William I of the
house of Orange.
The Kingdom of Sardinia
The territory of the Piedmont
and the island of Sardinia
were made the Kingdom of
Sardinia to be ruled by the
House of Savoy.
The Germanic Confederation
The territories along the east
bank of the Rhine were given to
Prussia and the Confederation of
the Rhine was reorganized into
the Germanic Confederation.
The Compensation of Austria
Austria was given back most of
the territory it had recently lost
and was compensated in
Germany and Italy (Lombardia
and Venice) for the loss of the
Austrian Netherlands.
 The formerly
Venetian part of
Dalmatia (now
in Croatia) also
went to Austria.
The Port of Trieste
The Ideology of Conservatism
The Congress of Vienna marked
the beginning of decades of
political reactions to the liberal
ideologies of the French and
American revolutions.
During the period following the
fall of Napoleon the dominant
political philosophy of Europe
was Conservatism.
Conservatism
A philosophy that is
adverse to rapid
change and innovation
and strives for balance
and order, while
avoiding extremes.
Conservatives advocated belief in
faith over reason, tradition over
free inquiry, hierarchy over
equality, collective values over
individualism, and divine or
natural law over secular law.
Conservatism emphasizes the
merits of the status quo and
endorses the prevailing
distribution of power, wealth,
and social standing.
Edmund Burke
Conservatism was best
expressed in Edmund
Burke's Reflections on
the Revolution in France,
which emphasized the
dangers of radical and
"rational" political
change.
Burke viewed society as
an organic whole, with
individuals performing
various roles and
functions.
In this society a natural
elite—by virtue of birth,
wealth, and education—is
supposed to provide the
leadership.
The community is held
together by venerable customs
and traditions; gradual
changes can be made, but
only when they have gained
wide acceptance.
Burke rejected the
principles of equality,
popular representation,
and popular sovereignty.
Joseph de Maistre
“All grandeur, all power, all
subordination to authority
rests on the executioner: he
is the horror and the bond of
human association. Remove
this incomprehensible agent
from the world and at that
very moment order gives way
to chaos, thrones topple and
society disappears.”
The Concert of Europe
The chief accomplishment of the
Congress was in reestablishing a
balance of power among the
countries of Europe, with the
result that the peace of Europe
remained practically undisturbed
for 40 years.
This enduring peace was maintained
through the establishment of the
Concert of Europe, in which the
Quadruple Alliance (later the
Quintuple Alliance – with France)
was reaffirmed and the Great Powers
would meet periodically.
The purpose of the meetings
were to ensure peace and end
rebellion against the
established order through the
use of armed intervention.
Intervention
Armed intervention by the allies
was successful in ending rebellions
against the Bourbons in both Spain
and Italy.
Britain disagreed with the use of
force to intervene in the internal
affairs of a country.
Latin America
The Napoleonic Wars led to
open rebellion against Spanish
rule throughout Latin America
By 1820, the Concert of Europe
was planning armed intervention
to restore the Bourbon
monarchy’s control over its
former colonies in Latin
America.
The Monroe Doctrine
British foreign minister George
Canning suggested a joint venture
with the United States to preserve
the interests of both nations by
blocking European colonization in
the Western Hemisphere.
 U.S. Secretary of
State John Quincy
Adams and President
James Monroe
announced that the
U.S. would not allow
intervention in Latin
America.
“the wake of a British man-of-war”
 In reality the most
important factor in
preventing the
European overthrow
of the newly
independent nations
of Latin America was
British naval power.
The Greek Revolt
In 1821 Greek
nationalists led a
revolt against the
Ottoman Turks
who had ruled
the region for
over 400 years.
 In the first phase (1821-1824) of the war for
Greek independence, the Greeks fought
virtually alone, aided only by money and
volunteers from other European countries,
where the Greek cause had aroused a great deal
of sympathy.
Liberals and
Romantics
took up the
cause of Greek
liberty.
Lord Byron, the
Romantic poet,
died in Greece
while fighting
in the
revolution.
Lord Byron on his Death-bed c. 1826
The Great Powers
Intervene
Because of the strategic
importance of Greece on the
continent of Europe, the
European powers agreed in 1827
to intervene militarily on behalf
of the Greeks.
 France, Great Britain, and
Russia first demanded an
armistice, which the Turkish
government, commonly known
as the Porte, refused.
The European powers then sent
naval forces to Greece.
The presence of the naval forces,
and the efforts of Russia, in
particular, forced the Porte to
accept a settlement.
Treaty of Adrianople
In 1829 the Treaty of Adrianople
terminated the Russo-Turkish War,
which had grown out of both the
Greek revolution and Russia's own
aspirations in southeastern Europe.
The Kingdom of Greece
In 1830, under the London
Protocol, the Allies established
the Kingdom of Greece with a
German Bavarian prince as the
new “Greek” king.
The Conservative Domination
Great Britain
In 1815, Britain was ruled by the
aristocratic landowning classes that
dominated both houses of
Parliament.
Voting was controlled by the landed
gentry and was unequal and
restricted.
The Whigs and Tories
The British Parliament
was divided into two
factions: the Whigs and
Tories.
Both factions were still
controlled by the landed classes,
but the Whigs were receiving
support from the new upper
middle class generated by the
Industrial Revolution.
The Tories
The Tories controlled
Parliament and became
more reactionary with the
excesses of the French
Revolution and Napoleon.
In 1815, with falling grain prices,
the Tories passed the Corn Law
which placed extremely high
tariffs on imported grain.
The working classes reacted to
higher bread prices with outrage
and protests.
The Peterloo Massacre
In 1819, a crowd of 60,000
protesters in Manchester was
attacked by army cavalry.
 Eleven people were killed in the
“massacre” and the government
reacted by passing repressive
measures against the protesters.

Restoration in France
In 1814, the
Bourbon king
Louis XVIII
(brother of Louis
XVI) was restored
to the throne.
The Constitutional Charter
Understanding the need to
maintain some of the
revolutionary reforms, the
Bourbons agreed to the terms of
the Concordat with the Pope and
accepted Napoleon’s Civil Code.
Louis was opposed by both the
Liberals and the conservative
Ultra-Royalists.
The Ultras
gained the upper
hand in 1824
when Louis was
succeeded by
Charles X.
Conservative policies
of the Ultras led France,
once again, to the brink
of revolution by 1830.
Intervention in Italy
By 1815, following the
Congress of Vienna, the
Italian peninsula remained
divided into nine states
subject to the domination of
northern European powers.
Attempts at revolt against the
Bourbons and Hapsburg were
brutally crushed.
Secret societies, such as the
Carbonari kept the spirit of
nationalism and revolution alive.
Intervention in Spain
The Spanish Bourbon king
Ferdinand VII was restored in
1814.
Refusal to institutes political
reforms led to an upper-middleclass rebellion in 1820.
The Concert of Europe
intervened, when a French army
invaded Spain in 1823.
Ferdinand later imprisoned and
tortured to death the leaders of
the rebellion.
Repression in Central
Europe
Prince Metternich
used his secret
police to insure
that Nationalism
and Liberalism
were kept in check
in Central Europe.
German Nationalism
The Nationalists in
the German
speaking countries
looked to King
Frederick William
III of Prussia for
leadership.
Prussian Reforms
The Prussian government
instituted a number of liberal
reforms: abolition of serfdom,
municipal governments,
expansion of education and
universal military conscription.
Following these initial reforms
Prussia became more reactionary
and remained an absolutist state
with no real interest in German
unity.
Burschenschaften
The growing forces of liberalism
and nationalism in central
Europe were best characterized
by the Burschenschaften, the
radical student societies of
Germany.
Honor, Liberty and Fatherland
The Burschenschaften sought to
spread German nationalism and
culture through a variety of
activities that really worried
Metternich and the
Conservatives.
The Karlsbad Decrees
The Karlsbad Decrees of 1819 were
passed by the Diet of the German
Confederation to disband
Burschenschaften, impose
censorship on the German press and
placed most German universities
under close government
supervision.
The Austrian Empire
The Empire was a multinational
state held together by the power of
the Hapsburg rulers.
The Germans, who made up one
quarter of the population,
dominated the country.
Metternich’s policies of
repression and reaction held in
check the nationalistic feelings
of such diverse groups as the
Slavs, Magyars and Czechs.
Autocratic Russia
The Russian Tsar, Alexander I, a
believer in the ideals of the
Enlightenment, abolished many
cruel punishments and in 1802
and introduced a more orderly
administration of government.
He improved the condition of
the serfs and promoted
education, doubling the number
of Russian universities.
But he refused to grant a
constitution or free the serfs.
With the defeat of Napoleon he
became more reactionary,
reverting to a program of
arbitrary censorship and
repression against liberal groups
such as the National Union.
The Decembrist Revolt
Nicholas I came to the throne
after suppressing the Decembrist
revolt, staged by reform-minded
army officers who favored the
accession of his brother
Constantine.
Nicholas I
His domestic
policy was
autocratic and
his foreign
policy
aggressive.
The Policeman of Europe
He introduced military discipline
into the civil service, tried to
prevent the spread of
revolutionary ideas by rigid
censorship and strict state
control of universities.
The Ideologies of Change
Liberalism,
Nationalism and
Socialism
Liberalism
The idea that people
should be as free from
restraint as possible – this
is expressed in both
political and economic
liberalism.
Economic Liberalism
Also called classical economics,
economic liberalism is based on
the idea of laissez-faire.
Government should only involve
itself in three things: defense,
police and public works.
Thomas Malthus
In his work Essay on the
Principles of Population,
Malthus argued that population,
if left unchecked, increases
geometrically while the food
supply increases arithmetically.
This would lead to
overpopulation and ultimately
starvation and population
decline.
Nature imposes checks, like
disease, war, poverty and famine
to keep populations from
exploding.
Therefore ……….
Misery and poverty are the
inevitable consequences of the
laws of nature.
Individuals, charities and
governments should not interfere
to help the poor.
David Ricardo
In his Principles of Political
Economy, Ricardo explains his
“Iron Law of Wages” –
Iron Law of Wages
Population growth means more
workers; more workers means
lower wages; wages fall below
subsistence level and starvation
leads to lower population.
Lower population leads to higher
wages; higher wages leads to more
food and higher population and the
cycle repeats.
Trying to raise wages and help the
poor just makes things worse.
Political Liberalism
Liberals believed in the
protection of civil liberties and
the basic rights and equality of
all people.
These rights should be protected
by a written constitution.
Ministerial Responsibility
Many liberals believed that the
state ministers should be
responsible to parliaments rather
than the King.
Most liberals believed in only
limited suffrage.
Liberalism was very much a
philosophy of the industrial,
upper-middle-class who sought
to share power with the landed
aristocracy.
Liberals were not democrats.
John Stuart Mill
In his work On Liberty, Mill wrote
the quintessential treatise on the
liberal philosophy of individual
rights.
In his work On the Subjection of
Women, he espoused the concepts
of equal rights for women.
Nationalism
A political and cultural movement
in which the nation-state is
regarded as paramount for the
realization of social, economic,
and cultural aspirations of a
people.
Nationalism is
characterized principally by
a feeling of community
among a people, based on
common descent,
language, and religion.
The growing movement of
nationalism in nineteenthcentury Europe was
fundamentally radical since it
encouraged people to shift their
political loyalty away from
kings.
The forces of nationalism
were opposed by
conservatives who feared that
the unification of countries of
Germany and Italy would
upset the balance of power.
They also fought against
national groups such as the
Hungarians would have upset
the status quo by breaking up
the Austrian Empire.
Utopian Socialism
The early theories of socialism
were based on the ideas that
cooperation was superior to
competition and that equality
must be introduced into social
conditions.
The utopians were against
private property and the
competitive spirit of the
industrial revolution
The Utopian Socialists
Henri de saint-Simon
believed society should be a
cooperative community run
by the elite industrialists and
intellectuals making
government obsolete.
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier, worked out
detailed plans for cooperative
communities called "phalansteries”
Although his plans remained
untested, he best characterized the
utopian socialists of the first half of
the nineteenth century.
Robert Owen
Was a wealthy Scottish wool
manufacturer that turned the factory
town of New Lanark, Scotland into
a thriving community.
When he tried to establish a
cooperative community in the
U.S.called New Harmony -- it
failed.
Louis Blanc
Frenchman Louis Blanc, in his
work The Organization of Work,
denounced competition and
urged government involvement
in the creation of cooperative
workshops.
Flora Tristan
The French socialist, Flora
Tristan, in her work The
Worker’s Union,
demanded the absolute
equality of the sexes.
Revolution and Reform
1830 – 1850
Another French Revolution
King Charles X (Brother of
Louis XVIII) fearing the
growing power of liberals in
France passed a series of laws
in 1830 called the July
Ordinances.
The July Ordinances
The laws imposed rigid
press censorship,
dissolved the legislative
assembly and reduced the
electorate.
The July Revolution
Reactions
were swift and
violent with
barricades and
fighting in the
streets of
Paris.
Moderate liberals
appealed to
Louis-Philippe
the duke of
Orleans and
Charles was
forced to
abdicate.
The Bourgeois King
Louis-Philippe
dressed and
acted the part
of the upper
middle class
king.
He ignored the call for
increased democracy and
failed to bring about reforms
that would alleviate the
poverty of the working class.
Louis-Philippe cooperated
with François Guizot and the
Party of Resistance who felt
that France had reached the
“perfect form.”
With the ignoring of the poor
and the middle class
movement of Adolphe Thiers’
Party of Movement, the stage
was set for further revolution
in France.
Belgian Revolution
Neutral Belgium
Belgian Nationalists
resisted the rule of the
House of Orange and in
1830 the Great Powers
agreed to the
establishment of the
Kingdom of Belgium
under Leopold of SaxeKing Leopold I
Coburg.
Italy and Poland
Nationalist
rebellions in Italy
and Poland in the
same year were
brutally crushed by
the forces of Austria
and Russia.
Giuseppe Mazzini
Reform in Great Britain.
In 1830 the Whigs gained
power in Parliament.
The July Revolution in France
became a catalyst for reform
in Great Britain.
The Reform Act - 1832
Disenfranchised 56 rotten
boroughs and enfranchised 42
new towns giving the new
industrial urban areas some
voice in government.
The bill retained substantial
property qualifications and so
only benefited the upper middle
class of the “moneyed,
manufacturing, and educated
elite.”
The English Poor Law of 1834
This new reform law was based
on the theory that if the
conditions for state welfare were
intentionally made miserable
and degrading, then the poor
would be encouraged to find
profitable employment.
Repealing the Corn Laws 1846
Another piece of liberal legislation
involved the repeal of the Corn
Laws
Manufacturers Richard Cobden and
John Bight formed the Anti-Corn
Law League to help workers lower
bread prices.
The middle class manufactures
favored the end of the Corn Laws
on the principles of free trade and
laissez-faire.
The middle class was satisfied by
these reform and England avoided
the next round of revolution that
was about to sweep across Europe.
The Revolutions of 1848.
The conservative order
continued to dominate the
continent, despite the revolutions
in France, Belgium and Greece.
In 1848, a series of liberal
revolutions swept through
Europe, beginning in France.
Another French Revolution
An economic recession in France,
beginning in 1846, brought great
hardship to the working classes.
One third of the workers in Paris
were unemployed by the end of
1847.
Louis Philippe’s scandal
ridden government continued
to refuse to make reforms,
such as the expansion of
suffrage to the middle class.
Political opposition to LouisPhilippe’s government began to
grow under the leadership of
Adolphe Thiers.
Since political rallies were
illegal, liberals used banquets to
call for reforms.
 When the
government
outlawed the Grand
Banquet in February
of 1848, the
barricades went up
again in the city of
Paris.
 The rebellion
forced LouisPhilippe to
abdicate by the
end of February
and he fled the
country.
The Provisional Government
 A provisional government was created
including such radical liberals as the
Utopian Socialist Louis Blanc.
 The new government called for a
national assembly to create a new
constitution based on universal manhood
suffrage.
The National Workshops
Blanc helped establish a worker’s
unemployment compensation
program called National
Workshops.
The program quickly became a
major economic burden to the
government.
General Elections
The elections were a repudiation of
the radical republicans who only
gained 100 out of the 800 seats in
the Assembly.
The cost of the National Workshops
led the moderates to close them
down in June.
The June Days
 The closing of the
workshops led to
riots in the streets,
which took on an air
of class warfare,
with the lower class
workers attacking
the middle class
bourgeoisie.
 The street fighting
was ended after four
days of bloodshed –
thousands were
killed and 11,000
prisoners were
deported to Algeria
in Africa.
The Second Republic
The new constitution was ratified in
November of 1848 – creating a
unicameral legislature of 750
members elected by universal
manhood suffrage.
A president was to be elected for
four years – also by universal
manhood suffrage.
President Bonaparte
The winner of the
presidential election
was Charles Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte
the nephew of
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Within four years
President
Bonaparte would
become Emperor
Napoleon III.
Revolutions in Central Europe
News of the revolution in France
caused an explosion of rebellion
throughout Central Europe.
German Rebellions
Workers destroyed the
textile machinery they
thought were stealing their
jobs.
Peasants looted and
burned the manor houses
of nobility in Germany.
The revolts
led many
German
rulers to
begin liberal
reforms.
 Prussian King
Frederick William IV
abolished censorship
and agreed to a new
constitution and to
work towards the
unification of
Germany.
The Frankfurt Assembly
The German states each sent
representatives elected by universal
manhood suffrage to an all-German
Parliament to meet in Frankfurt
with purpose of creating a
constitution for a united Germany.
The mostly upper middle class
assembly declared itself to be the
government of all of Germany then
broke down in controversy over the
composition of the new German
state.
Big Germany vs. Small
Germany
Supporters of a Grossdeutsch
wanted a “big” Germany
which would include the
German provinces of Austria.
The Kleindeutsch favored
excluding Austria and making
the Prussian King the
Emperor of Germany.
He would not “stoop to the gutter” to
accept "a crown made of mud and clay."
 The problem was solved
when Austria withdrew
but the Kleindeutsch
solution failed as well
when Prussian King
Frederick William IV
refused to be Emperor
and disbanded the
assembly.
The Hungarian Revolt
 News of the
French revolt led
to a Nationalist
uprising in
Hungary against
the Hapsburgs of
Austria.
 The upper middle
class Hungarians, led
by Louis Kossuth,
sought to gain
“commonwealth”
status within the
Austria Empire.
Metternich’s Downfall
 Violent riots in
Vienna, Budapest
and Prague led to
the dismissal of
Metternich, who
then fled into
exile abroad.
Vienna
Revolutionaries in
Vienna seized the
capital and called
for the election of
a national
assembly.
The new liberal government
agreed to Hungary’s demands a
separate assembly, national army
and semi-autonomy.
The Czechs in
Bohemia then
began to call for
their own
government.
Conservative Backlash
The conservatives played on the
fears of the middle class of class
warfare and used the army to
brutally crush the Czech uprising.
In October 1848, the Minister of
War was killed by a mob in Vienna.
 The Army now moved
on Vienna and by
December the radicals
had been crushed and
the Emperor Ferdinand
I had abdicated in
favor of his brother
Francis Joseph I – who
would rule until 1916.
Crushing the Hungarian
Revolt.
The Austrian armies, aided by
140,000 Russian troops sent by Tsar
Nicholas I, were able to crush the
Hungarian revolt in 1849.
The Austrian revolution failed and
the conservative, autocratic
government continued to rule.
Revolts in Italy.
 The leader of Italy’s
Risorgimento
(resurgence)
movement was
Giuseppe Mazzini,
the founder of the
Nationalist
organization Young
Italy.
 Mazzini was involved
with the Carbonari
secret societies but
quit and became a
leading advocate of
nationalism in Europe.
Liberal rebellions broke out
all over Italy in 1848,
beginning in Sicily and soon
spreading throughout the
peninsula.
Lombardy and Venice broke
from Austria and became a
republic.
Rome was taken from the
Vatican and was declared a
republic with Mazzini as its
leader.
The King of Piedmont led an
army against the Austrians,
but failed in his invasion of
Lombardy.
The Failures of 1848
The liberal governments
were short lived and by
1849 Austria had regained
its Italian territories
 The French sent an
army to liberate
Rome, which under
the leadership of
Giuseppi Garibaldi,
was able to hold out
for 30 days against
overwhelming odds.
In the end only
Piedmont kept its
liberal constitution.
Why were the liberal
revolts so successful at
first but then failed so
quickly?
Order rules the day…
The unity that brought about the
success of the revolts was
quickly lost to ideological
fighting over the degree of
democratic reform.
Concern over property rights led
many moderate middle class
liberal to pull back from the
radicals over the issue of
universal manhood suffrage.
A failure over autonomy
Nationalists such as the
Hungarians that fought for their
own independence refused to
agree to the independence of
groups such as the Slovenes,
Croats and Serbs.
The Austrians were able to
play one national group
against the other.