Chapter 14 – Surge of Liberalism and Nationalism: Revolution, Counterrevolution, and Unification

1. Chapter 14 – Surge of Liberalism and Nationalism: Revolution, Counterrevolution, and Unification Revolutions, 1848

2. 1848: The Year of the Revolution • Beginning in France, revolution spread through Europe • Response to economic problems and long denied liberal and national demands

3. Revolutions Map

4. France, 1848 • The February Revolution • Conservatism was dead after 1830, discredited in France by the politics of Restoration (Charles X and the ultras) … hanging on in Austria, Hapsburg lands • Government of Louis Philippe was bourgeois and liberal in a limited sense (very limited voting rights – about 3%) • Opposition (radical republicans) wanted reforms … clashed with soldiers in February 1848 • Louis Philippe abdicated and France becomes a republic

5. France, 1848 • The June Days • The new republic did not include workers and the extreme poor • To address the working poor’s needs, the middle class government set up national workshops … provided food, medical benefits, and employment on public works projects • Workers hated them, land owners viewed them as a waste of money … government closed them and workers rebelled again (June) • The worker revolt was crushed mercilessly (1460 dead) • In December, the French elected Louis Napoleon president of the Second Republic

6. French Leaders

7. 1848 Elsewhere • Germany • Nationalism emerged during the Napoleonic era and remained strong • Urban intellectuals liked liberalism; most people remained conservative • Princes made concessions to liberals during economic hard times in the 1840s • Result: Frankfurt Assembly … approved a new German Federation with Prussian king William IV as emperor … he refused, assembly failed • Liberalism discredited in Germany • Austria • Led by Metternich, Austria suffered from a “dissolution complex” … a concern for the disintegration of the empire caused by liberalism and nationalism • Austria was a multi-national empire ruled by the Hapsburg Emperor Francis Joseph • Viennese liberals intimidated Metternich into a Constitutional Assembly in 1848 • Hungarian Magyars, led by Louis Kossuth (1802-1894), rose up in a a nationalist rebellion • Both movements (liberal and national) were crushed by Metternich and the conservatives, but the conservative hold on Austria was slipping • Italy • Responding to liberal activism, many Italian autocrats (Ferdinand II of Naples, Grand Duke of Tuscany, King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia, Pope Pius IX) granted liberal constitutions • “Five Glorious Days” in northern Italy saw this spread to Milan and Venice • France intervened and the old order re-asserted itself

8. 1848: Conclusions • Every revolution (1820-1848) failed, whether liberal or national • But the direction was clear … national movements were rising at the expense of the old conservative order AND liberalism had stalled, even failed in many places • The Age of Revolution begun in 1789 had come to an end