Daniel Weinberg 2/2/10

Mrs. Yantz Period 7

Chapter 21 Notes

 In first half of 1820s, liberalism was mostly resisted, except for Greek Revolution and Latin
American revolts.
 Middle to second half of 1820s – Russia suppressed, France revolted, and Britain
accommodated.
 Russia: The Decembrist Revolt of 1825
 Czar Alexander I suppressed nationalism, liberalism, and all Enlightenment ideals.
 No challenge to authority until his death.
 Unrest in the Army
 Many Russian officers were exposed to Enlightenment ideals while occupying France.
 Some realized that Russian society was backwards and developed reformist sympathy.
 Had to form secret societies because of repressive government.
 Societies then carried out a coup d'etat in 1826.
 Dynastic Crisis
 1825 – Czar Alexander I died suddenly.
• First Problem – No direct heir
• His older brother, Constantine, had married a woman on non-royal blood and
could not take the throne with her as his wife.
• He renounced his claim to the throne and gave it to his younger brother,
Nicholas, who ended up becoming Czar.
• However, there was no official Czar for about 3 weeks, and news of a plot
against the government reached Nicholas' ears.
• Second Problem – The revolt.
• When the army officers and soldier were supposed to swear an oath of allegiance
to Nicholas as Czar, they refused on 2 points.
• They wanted a Constitution and for Constantine to be named Czar.
• He then ordered the cavalry and artillery to attack them, and more that 60 were
killed.
• He then led an investigation in which 5 of the plotters were executed and more
than 100 others were killed as well.
 Although Decembrist Revolt failed miserably, it was the first rebellion in modern
Russian history whose instigators had a clear political agenda.
 It became a symbol for liberal Russians.
 The Autocracy o Nicholas I
 He knew that he had to reform Russia both economically and socially, but, Like most
conservatives, he was afraid of change.
 He abusively used censorship as well as having an active secret police.
 Official Nationality
 His slogan was “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism.”
 Orthodoxy would provide the basis for morality, education, and intellectual life
 The Autocracy championed the Czar as the only person that could hold Russia together.
  Nationality referred to the idea that Russians were urged to see their religion, nationality,
and customs as a source of wisdom that separated them from the corruption and turmoil
in the West.
 Revolt and Repression in Poland
 Nicholas I also had a very conservative foreign policy, and it showed in Poland.
 Constantine was officially the ruler of Poland, but Russia intruded often.
 In late 1830, the recent Belgian and French Revolutions inspired a small revolt of
soldiers and students in Warsaw – may more revolts followed shortly after.
 The Polish Diet rejected Nicholas I as their ruler in 1831, and the Czar sent troops in
order to stop the Polish rebellions.
 Nicholas issued the Organic Statute, declaring Poland as an integral part of the Russian
Empire.
 Revolution in France – 1830
 Louis XVIII died in 1824, and his brother, the Count of Artois, was named King Charles
X.
 Charles X was a firm believer in rule by divine right.
 The Reactionary Policies of Charles X
 Had Chamber of Deputies compensate for the aristocrats that lost their land during the
Revolution.
 Restored the rule of primogeniture, whereby only the eldest son of an aristocrat inherited
the family domain.
 Enacted a law that punished sacrilege with imprisonment or death.
 Liberals despised and disapproved of all of these measures.
 In the 1827 elections, liberals gained enough seats in the Chamber of Deputes in order to
force the king to appoint a more liberal ministry.
 More liberal laws started to get passed, but the liberals wanted a full Constitutional
government.
 In 1829, the king appointed an ultraroyalist ministry and the liberals were forced to open
up discussions with the more liberal House of Orléans.
 The July Revolution
 In 1830, Charles X called for new elections, in which the liberals scored a stunning
victory.
 Charles then decided to attempt to have royalists seize power in the Chamber.
 1830 – Four Ordinances – restricted freedom of the press, dissolved the Chamber of
Deputes, restricted the franchise to the wealthy, and called for new election under the
new royalist franchise.
 Liberals were outraged by these acts, and the working class of Paris erected barricades
in the streets.
 More than 1800 people were killed in the battle that followed.
 August 2, 1830 – Charles X was exiled to England.
 The Chamber of Deputes names Louis Phillipe, duke of Orléans, the new king.
 There was a revolution, yet no republic was formed. The people of France were still too
wary after what happened in the 1792.
 There was no desire for another sans-culottes republic.
  Monarchy Under Louis Phillipe
 Politically
• He was much more liberal than the previous monarchy.
• He was called the “king of the French”, implying that he was a man of the people.
• He implemented the tricolor flag of the revolution rather than he white flag of the
Bourbons.
• The new constitution was thought of as a right of the people instead of a concession
of the monarch.
• Catholicism was acknowledged as the religion of the majority, instead of it being the
official religion of France.
• The government was very anticlerical.
• There was no more censorship
• The franchise was widened, yet it still remained restricted.
• The king had to cooperate with the Chamber of Deputes, he could not enact laws by
himself.
 Socially
• He was still quite conservative.
• Money remained the path to power and influence in the government.
• There was a lot of corruption.
• There was little or no sympathy for the lower and working classes.
• The workers called for job protection and better wages, but their cries were ignored.
 The “July Days” occurred in 1832 – was a revolt in Paris during the funeral of a popular
Napoleadnic general.
• The government suppressed it by force, and more than 800 people were either killed
or would.
 More rebellions continued to be crushed by use of military force.
 Belgium Becomes Independent – 1830
 Belgium was heavily influenced by the July Days.
 Had merged with Holland in 1815, yet differed in language, religion, and economy.
 Also had a nobility that had never accepted the merge with the Dutch.
 1830 – disturbances break out in Brussels after an opera about a rebellion in Naples.
 A provisional national government was formed by the municipal authorities and
propertied classes in order to end the rioting.
 When peace talks between Holland and Belgium failed, William of Holland sent troops
and ships against Belgium.
 By late 1830, the Dutch were defeated and a national congress had written up a liberal
Belgian constitution, which was accepted in 1831.
 Most major powers weren't happy with the Belgian revolt, as it upset the boundaries laid
down by the Congress of Vienna, but they were too preoccupied to intervene.
 Britain persuaded other powers to accept Belgian independence and Belgium was
officially declared neutral.
 A violation of this neutrality would be the cause of British intervention in WWI.
 The Great Reform Bill in Britain – 1832
 George IV died, which allowed the accession of William IV.
 Great Reform Bill was passed in 1832, which was the result of a series of events that
were very different from those which had occurred throughout the rest of Europe.
 Political and Economic Reform
 What factors contributed to the spirit of accommodation?
• The commercial and industrial class was much larger in Britain than in other
countries; no matter what government was put in place, the economy had to be one
of their top priorities.
• The liberal Whig aristocrats saw themselves as the protectors of constitutional
liberty and represented a long standing tradition of being in favor of moderate
reforms that made revolution in Britain virtually unnecessary.
• British law in general also showed a respect for civil liberties.
 In 1820, after the passage of the Six Acts, Lord Liverpool moved to change his cabinet.
• His new cabinet was generally more in favor of conservative policies, but realized
that the government must accommodate itself to the changing social and economic
life of the nation.
• They favored policies that allowed greater economic freedom and repealed the
Combination Acts that had disallowed labor organizations.
 Catholic Emancipation Act
 During the 1820s, Irish nationalist organized the Catholic Association under the
leadership of Daniel O'Connell in order to agitate for Catholic emancipation.
 Duke of Wellington realized that preventing Catholic Parliament appointees from
Ireland from taking their seats in Parliament could cause a civil war.
• To prevent it, Wellington and Robert Peel pushed the Catholic Emancipation Act
through Parliament in 1829.
• This ended the Anglican monopoly on British political life.
 Catholic emancipation was liberal idea, but was passed to preserve the conservative
order of stability in Ireland.
 Also included raising the franchise in Ireland so that only the wealthy could vote.
 The Parliamentary election in 1830 brought about many people who wanted to reform
Parliament; even Tories supported reform.
 The Wellington ministry fell soon after, King William IV turned to the Whig leader, Earl
Grey.
 Legislating Chance
 Whig ministry presented a major reform bill that had two major goals.
• The first was to abolish “rotten boroughs”, or boroughs with very few voters;
proposed to replace them with representatives for the previously unrepresented
manufacturing districts and cities.
• The second was that the number of voters in England and Whales was going to be
increased by about 50 percent through a set of new franchises.
 The bill was defeated in the House of Commons in 1831, but was passed after Earl Grey
called for another vote; the bill was then defeated in th House of Lords.
 Riots started to break out throughout the country.
 William IV finally agreed to create enough peers to get a third reform bill to pass
through the House of Lords.
 Effects of the Great Reform Bill were:
• It expanded the size of the English electorate by almost 50 percent, but it upheld the
property requirement for the franchise; gender also remained a qualification.
• Some members of the working class did however lose the right to vote due to the
abolition of certain old franchising rights.
• New urban boroughs were created to allow growing cities to have a voice in the
House of Commons.
• In truth, the bill only allowed for a greater variety of propertied people to be
represented in the House of Commons.
• The bill reconciled previously unrepresented property owners and economic
interests to the political institutions of the country.
• The bill also laid the foundations for future reforms in the church, politics, and
commercial policy.
• Revolution in Britain was made unnecessary because of the passage of this bill.