1848: The People’s Spring

1848
The year 1848 in Europe is sometimes
called the People’s Spring because, in
the course of a few months, popular
revolts and revolutions occurred all
over Europe. These began in France
but affected virtually every country
except England and Russia.
Monarchies were overthrown,
constitutions proclaimed, or national
independence declared in France,
Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Germany,
Italy, and elsewhere.
 Failed
Revolution
All the 1848 revolutions failed, however, and
within a few years, their accomplishments were
mostly reversed. But the 1848 revolts further
propagated the seeds of democracy and
nationalism that were sown by the French
Revolution of 1789.
As with all revolutions, there were both long-
and short-term precipitants to the 1848 events:
1. The Enlightenment
2. The Romantic Movement
3. The Industrial Revolution
 The Forces of
Change
But the forces of change could not
be contained. Already in the 1820s,
national independence movements
were underway in Belgium (against
Dutch rule) and Greece (against
Turkey), and in 1830, Paris was once
again convulsed by a revolution from
the streets. All these tensions were
compounded by the great potato
famine in the years after 1845, which
contributed to a continent-wide
economic recession. Yet another
revolution in France in 1848 was the
spark that lit the tinderbox.
 Restoration after
Napoleon

•With the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the

European powers gathered in Vienna in 1815 to
reassemble Europe following the old (pre-1789)
map, although some changes were made.
•Almost none of the independent republics
created by Napoleon were allowed to survive.
As Russia’s Tsar Alexander remarked at the
time, “Republics are not in fashion.”
 Quadruple Alliance

All the major European powers were controlled

by monarchs with varying authority, from the
constitutional monarchy of England to the
thoroughly despotic autocracy of Russia. After
the defeat of Napoleon, the victorious powers
(England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) formed a
Quadruple Alliance to coordinate conservative
efforts to squelch any new outbreaks of
Bonapartism or revolution.
 The Concert of
Europe

•After France was added to this alliance in 1818,

it was referred to as the concert system. Prince
Clemens von Metternich, chief minister of the
Habsburg monarchy, was the conservative
leader of Europe and the driving force behind
the Concert of Europe.
•Metternich organized several congresses of the
European leaders during the 1820s to discuss
intervention against political unrest on the
Continent, and the allies did actually intervene
in both Italy and Spain in the early 1820s to put
down nationalist and liberal revolts.
 The Forces of
Liberalism and
Nationalism.
Arrayed against these forces of
conservatism was the gathering
strength of liberalism and
nationalism, both of which had
their origins in the Enlightenment
and the French Revolution.
•Political Liberalism
•Economic Liberalism
•Political Nationalism
 Political
Liberalism
Political liberalism grew out of the
Enlightenment ideas of Locke, Rousseau,
and others who favored government by
consent and elaborated principles of
popular sovereignty, constitutionalism
(i.e., the powers of government limited
by constitutions), and tolerance of
divergent points of view. They promoted
individual rights, respect for private
property, the rule of law, and stronger
parliaments, although most accepted the
presence of a limited monarchy.
 Economic Liberalism

Economic liberalism was related to

Enlightenment ideas of private property but
derived more directly from Adam Smith (The
Wealth of Nations) and David Ricardo
(Principles of Political Economy), who
emphasized laissez-faire, the “invisible hand”
of the market, and free trade. Economic
liberals, like political ones, wanted to limit the
power of government but especially in terms
of its regulation of the economy.
 Political and Economic
Liberals
Political and economic liberals had much to
agree about, although differences in emphasis
did exist. John Stuart Mill, for example,
defended laissez-faire economics but only if the
power of entrepreneurs was balanced with
rights for employees and their trade unions.
Both forms of liberalism grew stronger with the
rapid emergence in the nineteenth century of
the middle class, whose members advocated
increased power and influence for themselves
in both political and economic spheres.
 Nationalism
The ultimate goal of nationalism is to create
a unified nation-state, in which the citizens of
that state identify with both the nation (the
people) and with the state (the political
community). The ideal of the nation-state
was relatively new in Europe and in the
world generally. Before the sixteenth
century, most political communities were
built on family dynasties (hereditary
monarchies), with little regard for popular
allegiance or national culture.
 Nation States
The Protestant Reformation questioned
and challenged the supremacy of the
Roman Catholic Church. In England in 1534,
for example, Henry VIII, in his efforts to
divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry
Anne Boleyn, signed the Act of Supremacy,
which rejected papal authority and
established the Church of England, with
Henry in control. This was the beginning of
the emergence of England as a nation-state
and was followed by nation-state
consolidation in Spain, France, and
elsewhere.
 Civic
Nationalism
•The forging of centralized, unified, national
states by monarchs from the top down is
sometimes referred to as civic nationalism.
Popular nationalism, the forging of states from
the bottom up, is more recent still, is linked to
the Enlightenment, and uses the revolutionary
ideas of the people as the source of power.
•This form of nationalism assumes that people
who share a common language, culture, and
identity—a nation—should be in charge of
their own political destiny. It sees the people
as a whole—rather than simply the elite—as
the repository of culture.
 Giuseppe Mazzini
•This kind of populist nationalism was apparent in
France during the 1789 revolution and was symbolized
by people wearing their hair naturally, snubbing the
use of wigs, and wearing common working trousers
instead of silk breeches. In fact, ordinary working
people, the emblem of the revolution, were referred to
as the sansculottes (“without fancy pants”).
•Giuseppe Mazzini – Young Italy
•He also created an international branch of his
organization, Young Europe, which trained a network
of conspirators across the Continent to agitate for
democratic constitutions.
Greek Revolt
•These liberal and national movements came
together in revolts and revolutions in numerous
places in the 1820s and 1830s, including
Belgium (chafing under Dutch rule), Spain, and
several Italian states. The best-known and most
successful revolutionary movement before
1830, however, was the Greek revolt against
Ottoman control.
•In contrast to other national insurgencies, the
revolt in Greece actually won support from
some of the monarchies in Europe, and the
Greeks finally won their independence in 1830.
(The British Romantic poet Lord Byron died
while fighting for the Greek cause.)
 French Revolt

•But it was France, once again, that

experienced the most important upheaval
during this period—the July Revolution of
1830. The restored Bourbon monarch
Louis XVIII had been succeeded in 1824 by
Charles X, who quickly moved toward a
more absolutist regime, threatening to roll
back most of the gains of the 1789
revolution.
•Charles abdicated and fled to England.
•Louis Philippe, new king (former Duke of
Orleans) who had served in the republican
army of 1792.
 Revolts
Word of the July uprising spread
throughout Europe, sparking similar
uprisings in Italy, Germany,
Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium,
and Poland. The outcomes of these
revolts were mixed. In Brussels,
disturbances just a month after the
Paris events led to demands for the
independence of Belgium from
Holland, which was finally granted the
following year.
 The Spectrum of
Socialism in the
Revolts of 1848
•In Paris, a provisional government had established
national workshops to provide jobs for the
unemployed, and these now became a source of
demands from workers for improved working
conditions. In April, elections produced a new
National Assembly based on universal male suffrage,
but it was overwhelmingly conservative. In June, the
assembly resolved to close the workshops, and
workers took to the streets in protest.
•Paris was convulsed with a raging class war in which
armed workers confronted soldiers across barricades
all over the city. In the bloody June Days of June 24 to
26, several thousand people were killed, and 11,000
insurgents were imprisoned or deported. The specter
of socialist revolution had been suppressed, but the
events of June sent a shudder through all the
governments of Europe.
 Revolts
The influence of the events in Paris reached
far beyond French borders. In 1848 and
1849, revolts spread to Austria, Prussia,
Hungary, Bohemia, and parts of Italy. Some
of these revolts contained either the liberal
or socialist ingredients of the French
experience, but some also reflected peasant
grievances against landlords or nationalist
aspirations.
 The Changes of
1848
•During the 1848 People’s Spring,
virtually all of Europe was rocked by the
tempest, with exceptions being the most
liberal state, Britain, and the most
reactionary one, Russia.
•The changes during those few months
were phenomenal, with revolutionaries,
nationalists, and patriots demanding
constitutions, representative assemblies,
responsible government, extended
suffrage, jury trials, the right of
assembly, and freedom of the press, and
with stupefied governments allowing
constitutional assemblies, independent
nations, and the abolition of serfdom.
 Reaction
Within a year, however, the forces of reaction were
back in control, and the revolution was over. In
France, the revolution had run its course by the end
of 1848, with the election of Louis Napoleon as
president. In Austria, the Habsburg monarchy, after
the initial shocks of March 1848, regained its footing
and deployed the army against rebels in Bohemia,
Italy, and Hungary. The Russian tsar contributed
100,000 Russian troops to the suppression of the
revolt in Hungary. And in Italy, an intervention by the
French army helped drive Mazzini and the
republicans out of Rome and restore the pope to the
Vatican.
 Conclusions
•The 1848 revolutions frightened the crowned heads of
Europe and caused several to abdicate. Those who
remained were cognizant of the threats posed by
liberalism, nationalism, and socialism, and some of them
took steps in years afterward to allay the problems that
contributed to revolutionary ferment.
•Most significantly, the ideas of revolution gained ground
with the revolutions of 1848.
•The ideas of nationalism and national unification were
frustrated in 1848 but gained currency in that year—and
within a generation, they proved victorious in Germany and
Italy. And socialism, which had raised the red flag in France,
Hungary, and elsewhere, was now on the political agenda.