1. What were the main causes and results of the revolutions of 1848?
In the late 1840s, Europe entered a period of tense economic and political crisis. Bad harvests across the continent caused widespread distress. Uneven industrial development failed to provide jobs or raise incomes, and revolts and insurrections rocked Europe
Workers and peasants did not play the dominant role in the revolutions of Instead, these revolutions were mainly liberal, middle class, and urban.
Western European liberals desired, above all, to establish constitutional governments where the power of the monarchs would be limited by elected parliaments and guarantees of civil liberties.
In Central Europe, the Austrian empire and the German and Italian states sought to promote the principle of nationalism. While the German and Italian liberals hoped to unify their people, in the Austrian Empire, the liberal leaders of the subject nationalities hoped to win independence from the Hapsburgs and to create separate national states.
Full-scale revolution broke out in France in Feb and it shock waves ripped across the continent
Only the most developed countries Great Britain, Belgium, and Netherlands and least developed The Ottoman and Russian Empires, escaped untouched
Everywhere else governments fell as monarchs and ministers gave in or fled. National independence, liberal democratic constitutions, and social reform seemed to come BUT in the end the revolutions failed.
What were the main causes and results of the revolutions of 1848?

2. Pre-1848 Tensions- Long Term
Industrialization
Economic challenges to rulers
Rapid urbanization
Challenges to the artisan class
Population doubled in the 18th c
Food supply problems
Ideological Challenges
Liberalism, nationalism, democracy, socialism
Romanticism
Repressive Measures
Carlsbad Decrees (Prussia)
Six Acts (England)
Secret police created in many European states

3. Pre-1848 Tensions: Short Term
Agricultural Crises
Poor cereal harvests
Prices rose 60% in one year
Potato blight Ireland
Financial Crisis
Investment bubbles burst
Unemployment increased rapidly  artisan classes
Working and middle classes are now joined in misery as the urban and agricultural peasantry

4. No coherent Organized Revolutions
Many different reasons for revolutionary activities
Reactions to long and short-term causes
Competing ideologies in different countries
Different revolutionary leaders, aims, and goals in different countries
Some countries had no revolutions
England
Russia

5. France

6. The February Revolution
Discontent had been mounting against the government of King Louis Phillipe
On February 22, 1848– a large banquet was scheduled to be held in Paris by middle class opponents of Louis Phillipe and his chief minister, Francois Guizot (who opposed electoral reform)
When the government attempted to prevent the banquet, rioting broke out in the streets
For 18 years, Louis Philippe’s reign, bourgeois monarchy (served the selfish interest of France’s wealth elites) had been characterized by stubborn inaction and complacency
Corrupt politicians refused to approve social legislation or consider electoral reform
Frustrated desires for change, high-level financial scandals, and a greater sense of stagnation dovetailed with a sever depression that began with crop failures in
The government did little to prevent the agrarian crisis from dragging down the entire economy
The government’s failures united a diverse group of opponents against the king.
Bourgeois merchants, opposition deputies, and liberal intellectuals shared a sense of outrage with the middle class shopkeepers, skilled artisans, and unskilled working people
Widespread discontent eventually touched off a popular revolt in Paris
Reform banquets were used to protest against the king

7. The February Revolution
Workers, joined by some students began tearing up cobblestones and building barricades, armed with guns, demanded a new government
Feb. 23rd- Louis Philippe responded to liberal demands and dismissed Guizot
Unrest continued and rioting intensified
National Guard joined radicals
Feb. 24th Louis Philippe abdicates

8. Provisional Government
Chamber of Deputies formed a Provisional Government and declared the Second Republic
Set about drafting a democratic, republican constitution for France
Right to vote to every adult male
Bold decrees issued by the provisional republican government expressed sympathy for revolutionary freedoms
Workplace reforms- 10 hr workday for Paris
Freeing all slaves in the French colonies
Abolishing the death penalty
However, internal problems for the revolutionary coalition
Proclamation of a provisional republic, headed by a ten-man executive committee and certified by cries of approval from the revolutionary crowd
*primary doc*

9. Socialists vs. Moderate Republicans
Government had two groups
Moderate Republicans led by poet Alphonse de Lamartine
Socialists led by Louis Blanc
In an attempt to placate the socialists and workers of Paris, the provisional government placed Blanc in charge of establishing national workshops to provide assistance to the unemployed
Growing tensions between the groups
The nature of work
The right to unionize
Pay levels
The costs of government social programs
Can you have liberty for all men and still have a system based on private property?
On one had, the moderate liberal republicans of the middle class viewed universal male suffrage as the ultimate concession to dangerous forces and opposed any other radical social measures
On the other hand, radical republicans, influenced by socialism and appalled by the poverty and misery of the urban poor, were committed to some kind of socialism
Majority of the moderate republicans in the countryside, the socialists in the urban areas
Urban artisans who hated the unrestrained competition of cutthroat capitalism advocated a combination of strong craft unions and worker owned businesses

10. April Elections
French people went to the polls in April, in most cases for the first time
Resulted in a conservative majority in the Constituent Assembly
500 Monarchists and conservatives
270 moderate republicans
80 radicals/socialists
The conservative majority wanted the removal of radicals like Blanc from the government
In early June, the National Workshops were shut down
The clash of ideologies became a clash of classes and arms after the election
Countryside hated Paris
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Moderate republican
Predicted the overthrow of Louis Philippe’s government
Explained the election result by observing that the socialists movement in Paris aroused fierce hostility of France’s peasants as well as the middle and upper classes.
The French peasants owned land, and according to Tocqueville, “private property had become with all those who owned it a sort of bod of fraternity”
He saw that a majority of the members of the new Constituent Assembly was firmly committed to centrist moderation and strongly opposed to the socialists and their artisan allies – a view he shared
The new government’s executive committee dropped Blanc and included no representation of the Parisian working class

11. In May, workers invaded the Constituent Assembly and tried to proclaim a new revolutionary state
Government responded by using the National Guard to squash uprising
Government started to arrest radicals
Once the workshops were officially closed in June– all unmarried males would be drafted into the military

12. The June Days Violent uprising followed
Worker groups in Paris rose up in insurrection
Said the government had betrayed the revolution
Many wanted a redistribution of wealth
Barricades in the streets
Class war began
This time the government had the support of army and peasant France
The Republican army under General Louis Cavaignac was triumphant
A liberal-conservative coalition formed to opposed the lower class radicalism
Working people fought with the courage of utter desperation, but this time the government had the army and the support of peasant France
Nearly 3,000 people were killed by the army

13. Revolution a Failure
In place of a generous democratic republic, the Constituent Assembly completed a constitution with a strong executive
An elected president
One-house legislature
Allowed Louis Napoleon to win a landslide victory in the election of December 1848
His name and desire for peace allowed him to win election
Would become a semi-authoritarian regime
*France was different from other countries because nationalism was not a key issue*
Press censored, clubs outlawed, and rights to assembly was removed
The February coalition of the middle and working classes had in 4 months become locked in mortal combat
Louis Napoleon  Napoleon’s nephew
The New President-
-purged the government of all radical officials, replaced them with conservatives and monarchists
Disbanded the legislature and held new elections
“man of the people”
Regularly used force against dissenters
In 1851 coup d’etat  President Louis Napoleon declared a 2nd hereditary French Empirew

14. Revolution in Austrian Empire
Throughout central Europe, the first news of the upheaval in France evoked excitement and then popular revolution
“When France sneezes, all of Europe catches a cold”
Liberals demanded written constitutions, representative government, and greater civil liberties
When government hesitated popular revolts broke out
The nature of Austrian Empire—
Very conservative monarchy
Culturally and ethnically heterogeneous
-social reliance on serfdom dooms masses of people to a life without hope
Corrupt and inefficient
Competition with increasingly powerful Prussia
very vulnerable to revolutionary challenges
Austria was a mix of different cultures, languages, peoples
Had few liberals, but they did want political change
The Czechs wanted more rights
Nobody really opposed the Habsburg rule, but rather the Habsburg autocracy

16. Hungary
The revolution in the Austrian Empire began in Hungary in March 1848
Kossuth led the Hungarians in demanding
National autonomy
Full civil liberties
Universal suffrage
Monarchy in Vienna hesitated, students and workers took to the streets and raised barricades in defiance of the government
Habsburg emperor Ferdinand I promised reform and a liberal constitution
Metternich fled to London
The old order seemed to be collapsing
Serfdom abolished, peasants lost interest in the political and social questions agitating the cities

17. Weakening Revolutionary coalition
Conflicting national aspirations further weakened and ultimately destroyed the revolutionary coalition
Hungarian revolutionary leaders pushed through an extremely liberal, almost democratic, constitution
Wanted to create the kingdom of Hungary – unified, centralized Hungarian nation
The minority groups (Croats, Serbs, and Romanians) rejected this unification
Each group felt like they had the right to political autonomy and cultural independence

18. Powerful nobles joined Sophia to crush revolutions
Czech nationalists based in Prague and other parts of Bohemia came into conflict with German nationalists
The desires for national autonomy within the Austrian Empire allowed the monarch to play one ethnic group against the other
Conservative aristocratic forces rallied—archduchess Sophia (Emperor’s sister-in-law)
Powerful nobles joined Sophia to crush revolutions
Francis Joseph crowned emperor in Dec. 1848
Nicholas I of Russia helped subdue Hungary
Habsburgs ruled Hungary like a conquered territory
Sophia said Ferdinand had to be removed, abdicate in favor of her son, Francis Joseph, because the emperor essentially collapsed before a “mess of students”

19. Prussia
After Austria, Prussia was the largest and most influential kingdom in the German Confederation
Metternich persuaded Austria’s Francis I and Prussia’s Frederick William III to issue the Carlsbad Decree
-abolished free press
-outlawed fraternities
Basically allowed the arch-conservative Metternich to control Germany
Since the Napoleonic Wars, liberal German reformers had sought to transform absolutist Prussia into a constitutional monarchy, hoping it would lead the 38 states of the German Confederation into a unified nation state
The events in France encouraged the liberals to press their demands
In March 1848, excited crowds in urban centers across the German Confederation called for liberal reforms and a national parliament and many regional rulers gave in to their demands

20. Debated “What was Germany?”
Rioting in Berlin led to the Prussian King, Frederick William IV to cave to demands
He promised to grant Prussia a liberal constitution and to merge Prussia into a new national German state
An elected Prussian Constituent Assembly met in Berlin to write a constitution for the Prussian state
At the same time, elections held across Germany for a national parliament – write a federal constitution that would lead to national unification
Met in Frankfurt
Debated “What was Germany?”
Urban workers wanted much more and the Prussian aristocracy wanted much less than the moderate constitutional liberalism the king conceded
Workers advocated for
Universal suffrage
Minimum wage
10 hour work day
A ministry of labor
The Frankfurt assembly feared the Chartist ideas in Britain and the June Days in Paris
A conservative clique developed around the king to urge a counter revolution

21. Some of the more conservatives favored this option
At first, proposed unification around a Greater Germany (include German speaking lands of the Austrian Empire in a national state)
Some of the more conservatives favored this option
Others opposed the inclusion of Austria arguing that the Habsburgs would opposed a liberal constitution and it would also include a lot of non-Germans
Austria refuses
In 1849, the Assembly gave King Frederick William of Prussia emperor of the “lesser” German national state (without Austria)
Frederick William reasserted his royal authority and disbanded the Prussian Constituent Assembly
Refused the “crown from the gutter” offered by parliament in Frankfurt
With support of Russia, Austria forced Prussia to renounce all schemes of unification
German Confederation re-established in 1851
While all of this is going on, the forces of counter-revolution pushed back reformists and revolutionaries in Prussia and other German States
Also war with Denmark over two provinces Schleswig and Holstein
In an echo of Carlsbad Decrees, state security forces monitored universities, civic organizations, and the press throughout the confederation
Former revolutionaries fled into exile, and German liberals gave up demands for national unification
Attempts to unite the Germans, first in a liberal national state, and then in a conservative Prussian empire, had failed completely

22. Revolutions FAILED!
By 1850, the revolutions had been suppressed and the conservative order had been restored. The changes brought about by the revolutions had been slight. In France, arbitrary rule of Louis Philippe was replaced by that of Louis Napoleon
In Austrian Empire, a young emperor, Francis Joseph had replaced his mentally incompetent predecessor, Ferdinand I, and the traditional highly centralized government of the Hapsburgs had been reestablished. Obligatory peasant labor had been abolished, but that was among the few enduring changes that revolution had brought to Austria. In Italy, the Austrians assisted in the restoration of the conservative governments. In Germany, the Austrians reestablished the German Confederation – everywhere the revolutionary idealists had been defeated but the revolutionary ideas of liberalism and nationalism lived on and continued to win followers
Eventually  Italy unified in 1861, Hungary gained right of self-government in 1867 and a united German Empire was proclaimed in 1871

23. Please answer the following in complete sentences. Be ready to discuss.
What were the new ideologies that emerged to challenge conservatism?
What were the main causes and results of the revolutions of 1848?
Why did the ideas of the romantic movement so easily support reformist and radical political ideas, including liberalism, republicanism, and nationalism? What do you think this reveals about the general connections between art and politics?
How did the spread of radical ideas and movements for reform and revolution draw on “unfinished” political and industrial revolutions of the late 1700s?