Name: Sajal

Course: BA (history hons)

Year: 3rd year, 5th semester
Paper: History of modern Europe
Roll no: 210450
Assignment:1

Question: Delineate the distinct, competing claims as well as the changing contexts of the
two waves of revolutions in Europe from 1830 to 1848.
Answer:
Introduction:
In the name of stability and peace the great powers of Europe-Austria, Russia, Prussia and
England, were engaged in redrawing the political map of Europe after the fall of Napoleon I.
Through a system of alliances which came to be known as the ‘Concert of Europe’ the great
powers agreed to consult each other in order to maintain the peace of Europe. Attempt was
made to restore the old monarchical order in Europe. However, nationalism and liberalism
had already emerged as powerful forces in the 19th century Europe. This resulted in
revolutionary movements challenging the authority of the monarchical rule. The period
between 1815 and 1848 witnessed a number of such revolutionary movements in Europe.
With the revolutions major treaties were overturned, conservative solidarity was eroded. Then
it takes into account the secret society movements and the revolutions of the 1820s and the
1830s. Finally, we have discussed emergence of the nationalist movements and the revolution
of 1848.
THE CONGRESS SYSTEM AND ITS FALLOUT:
At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the heroes of the old European order, inspired by the
Austrian chancellor Count Metternich, sought to block the nationalist and liberal movements
once and for all. These two different systems of alliances laid the foundation for the so-called
parliamentary system, which after 1815 saw a series of international conferences of the great
powers to solve the problems and issues of Europe. After the Aix-la-Chapelle Conference of
1818, the tendency of the great powers to intervene in domestic politics, which was
threatened by the liberal movement, increased. At the Aix-la-Chapelle conference, French
territory was withdrawn and France rejoined the Concert of Europe. However, after
Napoleon, colonists sought to restore the pre-revolutionary European order, but eventually a
fusion of old and new emerged. All this was the inevitable result of the failure of the peace
activists of 1815 to find adequate means to prevent the contamination of their subjects by
liberalism, nationalism and radical political ideology in the restored monarchy. After 1815,
Spain became a major arena for anti-Restoration politics, where military officers and liberal
politicians combined to create a powerful movement against restored absolutism between
1815 and 1820.
THE SECRET SOCIETY MOVEMENT
Secret society movements were a European phenomenon. Such secret conspiratorial
structures sprang up everywhere, in part because of the restrictions the Restoration regime
placed on organized politics Secret societies often represented the more radical side of the
liberal movement, which was quite widespread in Europe, whose main political goal was
constitutional government. Secret society movements encouraged more active action in 1820,
when liberals infected with the Spanish model called for a liberal constitution that would
deploy military garrisons to force the dynasty to adopt at least some partial measures. In
France, the Republicans, who retained their emotional loyalty to Napoleon, were the central
force of the French Charbonnery and constantly plotted to seize power. Secret political
groups emerged in Italy during the Napoleonic occupation, partly as an antidote to the French
invasion. The main secret society was the Italian Carbonari, formed in Sicily to work for a
national constitutional government throughout Italy against the Murat regime in France. In
northern Italy there was another secret society called Adelphia, founded in 1796 by
Buonarotti as an associate of the radical Jacobin Jacques Babeuf. The activities of these secret
groups during the Restoration were motivated by the failure to achieve their constitutional
goals due to the repressive policies of the bourbon rulers of Sicily and the governments of the
neighboring Italian states. In the early stages of the anti-Restoration mobilization, there was
no connection between elite politics and popular unrest, despite fears of the Restoration
regime. The constitutional movements in Spain, Portugal and the Two Sicilies in 1820, and
the revolts in Piedmont and Greece in 1821, were clearly elite affairs, supported by sections
of the military but also weakened by internal divisions. Despite much social protest from the
general public, the assassination ultimately failed to spark a mass movement, making it easier
for the restored regime to suppress such mobilization. A similar pattern occurred in Italy in
the early 1920s, when liberal army officers attempted to capture Ferdinand and restore him to
power after the Madrid Revolt of 1823. A year later, Verona approved the intervention of
France to suppress the liberal revolt in Spain in 1820. A series of revolts against secret
societies took place in the Italian peninsula between 1820 and 1821. As in Spain, these
revolts involved elites, and sometimes the military, who were waiting for the introduction of a
constitutional government. In Naples, a liberal uprising began in July 1820 with the military
and civilian troops of the Carbonari. The Piedmontese Revolt of 1820 dealt with the Italian
question, but was divided into moderate and radical factions. Victor Emmanuel was
persuaded to accept the constitution, but the approach of the Austrians and the constant threat
of an invasion to restore the king's full power changed the situation. When the liberal revolt
in Naples collapsed in March 1821, the Piedmont Carbonaria formed a provisional
government and promulgated a constitution. This revolt was later put down again by Austrian
troops. The severity of such repression naturally varied from country to country, but in Italy it
had a devastating effect on the liberal revolutionaries as a whole, and in France at the same
time ultra-monarchism was on the rise. In the wider European context, the activities of secret
societies naturally became part of nationalist politics, the significance of which became
apparent in the 1830s.
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS OF THE 1820s AND THE 1830s:
A new revolutionary fervor arrived in the mid-1820s with the failure of the December
Uprising in Russia and the relatively successful revolt in Greece. In Russia, secret societies
were made up of radicals whose goal was the abolition of the tsarist regime and the
restoration of republicanism. Originally, wealthy Greeks living in foreign ports formed the
secret society Hetairia to plan a war for Greek independence. The Greek struggle, said to be
brutal, was further intensified when the Turkish Sultan Mahmud used this opportunity to
invade Greece and ask the Egyptian Mehmet Ali for help. But later, when the Greeks were
massacred in Constantinople, the Turkish sultan was reprimanded for destroying the Christian
temples. Metternich was reluctant for a time to express his support for the Greek cause by
emphasizing the unity of the monarchical order, but from 1826 things began to change. First,
the rise of the philhellic movement, which revived memories of classical antiquity, awakened
widespread sympathy for the Greek cause in Europe. The violent repression of the Turkish
monarchy awakened European sensitivities. This is probably why Britain and Russia, both
with interests in the Balkan conflict, reached an agreement regarding Greece in April
1826.The French government, which had long supported the Turks, was forced to change its
policy, and the Anglo-Russian Treaty of July became the Anglo-Franco-Russian Pact on
Greece, in which the three powers promised to establish independent commercial relations
with Greece. The Battle of Navarino led the Sultan to declare holy war against the Christian
nations. When Russia declared war on Turkey, Britain was alarmed, but thanks to French
intervention, Russian intervention in the region was accepted. After a fierce war, Russia
finally signed the Treaty of Adrianople with Turkey, in which Turkey agreed to autonomy for
Serbia, the Danubian Principalities, and Greece. The Treaty of London of 1830 then
recognized the full independence of Greece. Despite his enthusiasm for legalism, Metternich
could not prevent a European coalition against the Turkish monarchy. Finally, a new wave of
revolutionary uprisings hastened the collapse of the system. As a result, the general public
took political action as the conflict between the rebels and the monarchy over the
controversial issue of parliamentary representation caused political unrest. French liberals
have for some time complained about the monarchy's disenfranchisement ploy, arguing that
government officials used electoral rolls to ensure a royalist victory. In this context, a general
election was held in November 1827, with liberals and royalists returning in equal numbers.
Martiniac's new government tended to appease the Liberals, as they had a majority in the
parliament of 1829. But the government and the Liberal Party clashed over their differing
views on council reform. After the closing session in March 1830, the Assembly was quickly
dissolved, the House of Commons passing an unprecedented vote of no confidence in the
Polignac government. However, in the July 1830 election, the number of Liberal
representatives increased from 220 to 274. In response, the French government passed a law
in late July banning liberal newspapers, dissolving parliament and reducing the electorate by
a quarter. When the protests turned into barricades, fighting began and lasted for three days,
soldiers joined the rebels to suppress the revolution. The restored monarchy was unable to
defend itself against a popular coalition of liberal parliamentarians, the Parisian mafia and
disgruntled soldiers. A provisional government was formed, and on 30 July the king's cousin.
NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS:
In the 1840s, nationalism emerged as a dominant political ideology. In France, nationalist
sentiment fueled the Napoleonic myth, hoping that Bonaparte`s return would strengthen
France's national unity. The French radical Alexandre Ledru Rolland, who advocated
universal male suffrage in 1848, went further, showing that constitutional reform gradually
gave way to a sharper sensitivity to democratization as a major topic of political debate.
Nationalist mobilization in Central and Eastern Europe could not escape the influence of
emerging democratic ideologies that manifested themselves in various forms of radical
politics. Moving east and south to Italy and Germany, we see the development of a sense of
common destiny consistent with the nationalist movement. Thinkers began to envision the
emergence of a unified nation-state in the midst of existing political divisions. Here, as
elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, such sentiments began to shape liberal politics. The
moderate liberals of Germany were optimistic about the leadership of the German princes in
the unification movement and relied primarily on the leadership of Prussia. Established by the
Prussians in 1834 to break down economic and trade barriers in Germany, the Zollverein
convinced the liberals of the feasibility of their plan to unite Central Prussia. Apart from the
Piedmontese monarchy, which had a traditional dynastic rivalry with the Austrian Habsburgs,
Italian liberals had no proper state to hope for. But German and Italian radicals had different
understandings of how to achieve national unity. For them, their downfall was a prerequisite
for a unified nation-state. The greatest representative of radical Italian nationalism was
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872). To this end, he founded Young Italy (Giovine Italia) in 1832
and proposed a republican form of government for a unified Italian state. The events of 1848
changed this situation and opened new prospects for a nationalist revival in other parts of
central and southern Europe. This was also the period when the small predominantly Slavic
peoples of the Austrian Empire in the eastern part of the continent - Czechs, Slovaks, Croats,
Slavs, Ukrainians and Romanians - began to assert their national identity through historical
and ethnic values. Although the literary societies of the region represented a small intellectual
elite, they often began to spread nationalist sentiment among the peasant majority, often
against the barriers of traditionalism. In Poland and Hungary, representative institutions such
as local councils formed institutional centers of nationalist mobilization. In Poland and
Hungary, the desire to create nation-states was accompanied by programs of large-scale
democratization, the abolition of feudalism, and the establishment of central control over
peripheral regions and local governments. In both cases, however, the movement was
hampered by peasant apathy and the resistance of smaller states living in the Hungarian part
of the empire, who disliked the prospect of Hungarian political and cultural dominance.
REVOLUTIONS OF 1848:
‘‘Political mobilization, whatever its nature, began to gain a popular audience as it sought to
overcome the constraints of secret society politics that dominated various periods of political
turmoil at the turn of the century. This was partly an inevitable consequence of the more
complex problem of the transition from a subsistence economy dominated by agriculture to a
market economy adapted to a form of industrial capitalism. Unable to compete with cheap
factory goods, urban artisans saw the new large-scale industries as a threat to their existence.
Between the two revolutions, craftsmen and artisans in the textile, construction and printing
industries participated in regular strikes and protests. The economic crisis, which increased
public discontent with falling living standards, led to political instability. But an important
component of revolutionary politics was the sharper political consciousness of Europeans,
who by the middle of the 19th century were somewhat better educated than before. “In
response to a proposal to extend public education to rural areas, an Austrian nobleman asked,
‘‘Should we establish schools in the countryside so that farmers can send their complaints
about us to government officials? ‘‘he answered. Looking at the various revolutionary
experiences of Europe, the revolution of 1848 appears to have been a multidimensional event.
The European revolts of 1848 began with the Swiss Civil War, in which radical Protestant
cantons fought conservative Catholic cantons. The battle was won by the radical Protestant
states as a result of Metternich`s attempt to overthrow conservative Catholicism. Events in
Switzerland made it clear that the defenders of the existing order could not stem the tide of
revolution. Revolutionary events began in Sicily in January 1848, where a group of
conspirators planned an uprising in the provincial capital, Palermo. Naples, the capital of the
two Scillian kingdoms, saw street fighting before the king surrendered to the revolution by
promulgating a liberal constitution. The events in Piedmont and Tuscany in February 1848
followed a similar pattern. At the end of March, news of Metternich's fall threatened to shake
Austria's hold on northern Italy.
The next decisive stage in the series of revolts took place in Paris, where the banquet
campaign begun in mid-1847 gave way to street protests. On February 24, 1848, a republic
was proclaimed in response to these demands of the revolutionary masses. A riot broke out in
Munich that same month, followed by similar events in Vienna, Krakow, Milan and Berlin,
repeating the familiar clashes between rebels and the army on both sides of the barricades.
The provisional governments of Venice and Milan declared their independence from Austrian
rule and expressed their intention to join a unified Italian state. The new government in the
Hungarian capital insisted on autonomy within the empire. In Germany, unlike Italy, the
Piedmontese ruler Carlo Alberto took advantage of the collapse of Austrian rule to launch a
war of unification. A group of parliamentarians from several German states, representing the
liberal and radical opposition parties, met in Frankfurt am Main in late March 1848. They
called for elections for a Constituent Assembly to write a constitution for a unified German
nation-state. Elections were then held in May and the National Assembly in Frankfurt began
deliberations, but were opposed by Czech nationalists who suspected future German
dominance in Central Europe. The result was the establishment of an autonomous Hungarian
national government within the empire, which was independent of the control of the central
imperial bureaucracy in Vienna and promised accountability to the Hungarian legislature.
AFTERMATH OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS:
A large number of conservative candidates were elected with the support of rural farmers
across Europe, including France. In Naples, for example, in response to radical demands for
greater parliamentary control over foreign policy in order to deploy the Neapolitan army
against the Austrians in northern Italy, King Ferdinand decided to retaliate with repression. In
the decisive Battle of Custozza (July 1848) the Piedmontese army was defeated and
prevented the capitulation of the republican regime established in northern Italy. In June
1849, the war between the Austrians and the Piedmontese ended with the defeat of the
Piedmontese at the Battle of Novaro. Success in Italy allowed the Austrians to impose their
will on the Hungarian National Assembly, which had suffered enough from the national unity
of small countries like Croatia. When Jelacic`s army crossed the border between Croatia and
Hungary, the Hungarian government was waging war on three fronts.
Radicals in Budapest demanded a revolutionary response to the situation and appointed a
National Defense Committee led by Lajos Kossuth, a veteran leader of the Hungarian
opposition to Habsburg absolutism.
Conclusion:
The development of the Congress system by the great powers. Their emphasis was on the
restoration of the old order. Unfortunately for them, the ideas of liberalism and nationalism
had already influenced the minds of the people. Secret society movements, revolutionary
upsurges in different parts of Europe reflected the general attitude towards the restoration of
the old order and the territorial settlements reached at 1815. The European revolts in 1848
despite focussing on parliamentary government failed to change much the character of
monarchical government. Even in France the revolutionary forces failed to check the rise of
Louis Napoleon’s dictatorship.
Citation:

 Price, Roger (1988). The Revolutions of 1848. London: Macmillan.

 Grabb, Alexander. (2003). Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan (Ch. 2 &Ch.3).