Chapter 23: Ideologies and Upheavals

Chapter 23 Outline

The peace settlement
1. By 1814, the conservative monarchs had defeated French armies and checked the spread of the French Revolution--but many questions remained unanswered..
2. The European balance of power
  1. The victors (mainly the alliance of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain) restored the French boundaries of 1792 and the Bourbon dynasty.
  2. They made other changes in the boundaries of Europe, establishing Prussia as a "sentinel" against France, and created a new kingdom out of Belgium and Holland.
  3. It was believed that the concept of the balance of power--an international equilibrium of political and military forces--would preserve peace in Europe.
  4. But the demands of the victors, especially the Prussians and the Russians, for compensation threatened the balance.
    1. The Russian demands for Poland and the Prussian wish for Saxony led to conflict among the powers.
    2. Castlereagh, Metternich, and Talleyrand forced Russia and Prussia into a compromise whereby Russia got part of Poland and Prussia received two-fifths of Saxony.
3. Intervention and repression
  1. Under Metternich, Austria, Prussia, and Russia led a crusade against liberalism.
    1. They formed a Holy Alliance to check future liberal and revolutionary activity.
    2. When liberals succeeded in Spain and in the Two Sicilies, these powers intervened to restore conservatism.
    3. But Latin American republics broke from Spain.
    4. Metternich's policies also dominated the German Confederation--through which the Carlsbad Decrees were issued in 1819.
    5. These decrees repressed subversive ideas and organizations in the 38 German states.
4. Metternich and conservatism
  1. Metternich represented the view that the best state blended monarchy, bureaucracy, and aristocracy.
  2. He hated liberalism, which he claimed stirred up the lower classes and caused war and bloodshed.
    1. Liberalism also stirred up national aspirations in central Europe, which could lead to war and the breakup of the Austrian Empire.
    2. The empire, which was dominated by the minority Germans, contained many ethnic groups, including Hungarians and Czechs, which was a potential source of weakness and dissatisfaction.
Radical ideas and early socialism
1. After 1815 new radical ideas emerged--all of which rejected the old conservatism and sought alternative ideologies.
2. Liberalism
  1. Liberalism demanded representative government, equality before the law, and individual freedoms such as freedom of speech and assembly.
  2. Early-nineteenth-century liberalism opposed government intervention in social and economic affairs.
  3. Economic liberalism was known as laissez-faire--the principle that the economy should be left unregulated.
    1. Adam Smith was critical of mercantilism and argued that a free economy would bring wealth for all, including workers.
    2. British businessmen often used the principle of laissez-faire in self-serving ways,
  4. After 1815, political liberalism became increasingly a middle-class doctrine, used to exclude the lower classes from government and business.
    1. Some "radicals" went beyond liberalism to call for democracy--that is, universal voting rights.
3. Nationalism
  1. Nationalism was a second radical idea in the years after 1815.
    1. It advocated the ideal of "cultural unity."
    2. Nationalists sought to turn cultural unity into political reality, so that the territory of each people coincides with its state boundaries.
    3. The new urban-industrial society needed better communication (such as language and cultural unity) between individuals and groups.
    4. "Nations" are recent creations--the product of a new nationalist ideology centering on ceremonies and parades and other traditions.
    5. A common belief in "the people" linked nationalism with democracy, liberalism, and republicanism.
  2. Nationalists believed that every nation had the right to exist in freedom.
  3. However, nationalism generated "we" and "they" ideas of national superiority and national mission.
4. French utopian socialism
  1. Socialism began in France with the goal of overthrowing individualism with cooperation and a sense of community.
  2. French socialists proposed a system of greater economic equality planned by the government.
    1. They believed the rich and poor should be more nearly equal economically.
    2. They believed that private property should be abolished.
  3. Saint-Simon and Fourier proposed planned socialist communities.
    1. Saint-Simon was a moralist who believed that a planned society would bring about improved conditions for the poor.
    2. Fourier proposed new planned towns; he also criticized middle-class family life and sexual-marriage customs.
  4. Blanc believed that the state should set up government-backed workshops and factories to guarantee employment.
  5. The anarchist Proudhon claimed that property was profit that was stolen from the worker, and that the worker was the source of all wealth.
  6. Socialists supported skilled workers in their hatred of laissez-faire laws and their quest for collective action and state intervention on their behalf.
5. The birth of Marxian socialism
  1. The Communist Manifesto (1848), by Marx and Engels, is the key work of socialism.
    1. Marx saw all of previous history in terms of an economic class struggle.
    2. The industrial society was characterized, according to Marx, by the exploitation of the proletariat (workers) by the bourgeoisie (middle class).
  2. He predicted that the future would bring a violent revolution by workers to overthrow the capitalists.
  3. Marx argued that profits were really wages stolen from the workers.
  4. His theory of historical evolution came from Hegel.
    1. Hegel believed that each age is characterized by a dominant set of ideas, which produces opposing ideas and eventually a synthesis.
    2. Marx retained Hegel's view of history as a dialectic process of change but made economic relationships between classes the driving force.
The romantic movement
1. The romantic movement was partly a revolt against classicism and the Enlightenment.
  1. Romantics rejected the classical emphasis on order and rationality.
2. Romanticism's tenets
  1. Romanticism was characterized by a belief in emotional exuberance, imagination, and spontaneity.
  2. Romantics stressed individualism, led bohemian lives, and rejected materialism.
  3. Romantics used nature as a source of inspiration, and they emphasized the study of history.
    1. History was seen as the key to an organic, dynamic universe.
    2. Reading and writing history was viewed as the way to understand national destiny.
3. Romanticism in literature
  1. Romantic literature first developed fully in Britain, as exemplified by the poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
    1. Wordsworth was influenced by the ideas of Rousseau and the spirit of the early French Revolution.
    2. Wordsworth and Coleridge rejected classical rules of poetry; Wordsworth's work points to the power of nature to elevate and instruct.
    3. One of the best examples of his romantic credo is his poem "Daffodils."
    4. The Scottish novelist and poet Walter Scott romanticized history through a series of historical novels.
  2. Classicism remained strong in France under Napoleon, but in 1813 Germaine de Staël urged the French to turn away from classicism to romanticism.
  3. In France, Victor Hugo emphasized strange settings and human emotions--such as those in his Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  4. Romantics such as the Frenchwoman George Sand rebelled against social conventions.
  5. In central Europe, romanticism reinforced nationalism.
4. Romanticism in art and music
  1. Delacroix, Turner, and Constable were three of the greatest romantic painters.
  2. Romantic composers rejected well-defined structure in their efforts to find maximum range and emotional intensity.
    1. Liszt was the greatest pianist of his age.
    2. Beethoven was the first master of romantic music.
Reforms and revolutions
1. National liberation in Greece
  1. Greek nationalists led by Ypsilanti in 1821 fought for freedom from Turkey.
  2. The Great Powers supported the Ottoman Empire, but Britain, France, and Russia supported Greek nationalism, and Greece became independent in 1830.
2. Liberal reform in Great Britain
  1. The British aristocracy, which controlled the Tory party, feared liberalism and worked to repress it.
  2. The Corn Law (1815), which protected the English landowners by prohibiting the importation of foreign grain unless the domestic price rose above a certain level, is an example of aristocratic class power and selfishness.
    1. The change in the Corn Laws led to protests by urban laborers, supported by radical intellectuals.
    2. Parliament responded by passing the Six Acts (1819), which eliminated all mass meetings.
  3. The growth of the middle class and its desire for reform led to the Reform Bill of 1832, which increased the number of voters significantly.
    1. The House of Commons emerged as the major legislative body.
    2. The new industrial areas of the country gained representation in Commons.
    3. Many "rotten boroughs" were eliminated.
  4. The Chartist demand for universal male suffrage failed, but the Anti-Corn Law League succeeded in getting the Corn Laws repealed in 1846 and free trade established.
  5. By 1846, Tory and Whig parties were interested in reform and passed the Ten Hours Act (1847) that limited the factory workday for women and young people to ten hours.
3. Ireland and the Great Famine
  1. Most people in Ireland were Irish Catholic peasants who rented land from a small number of lazy and greedy English Protestant landlords.
  2. These peasants lived in shocking poverty--and under tremendous population growth.
  3. Population growth was due to potato cultivation, early marriage, and high rents.
  4. From 1820 on the potato crop was often diseased and starvation resulted.
  5. Relief efforts were inadequate; landlords insisted on rents and the government continued to collect taxes--all of which led to massive evictions.
  6. Millions died or left Ireland; anti-British feelings followed--as did Irish nationalism.
4. The revolution of 1830 in France
  1. Louis XVIII's Constitutional Charter of 1814, although undemocratic, protected the people against a return to royal absolutism and aristocratic privilege.
  2. Charles X, Louis's successor, tried to re-establish the old order and repudiated the Constitutional Charter in 1830.
  3. The reaction was an immediate insurrection that brought the expulsion of Charles X.
  4. The new king, Louis Philippe, accepted the Constitutional Charter but did little more than protect the rich upper middle class.
The revolutions of 1848
1. A democratic republic in France
  1. The refusal of King Louis Philippe and his chief minister, Guizot, to bring about electoral reform sparked a revolt in Paris in 1848.
  2. The revolt led to the establishment of a provisional republic that granted universal male suffrage and other reforms.
  3. The revolutionary coalition couldn't agree on a common program, as the moderate, liberal republicans split with the radical socialist republicans.
    1. Many artisans hated cutthroat capitalism and wanted strong craft unions.
  4. National workshops were a compromise between the socialists' demands for work for all and the moderates' determination to provide only temporary relief for the massive unemployment.
  5. The fear of socialism led to a clash of classes.
    1. The workers invaded the Constituent Assembly and tried to proclaim a new revolutionary government.
    2. The Assembly dissolved the workshops in Paris.
  6. The closing down of the workshops led to a violent uprising (the June Days).
  7. Class war led to the election of a strongman, Louis Napoleon, as president in 1848.
2. The Austrian Empire in 1848
  1. The revolution in France resulted in popular upheaval throughout central Europe, but in the end conservative reaction won.
  2. Hungarian nationalism resulted in revolution against the Austrian overlords.
    1. Under Kossuth, the Hungarians demanded national autonomy, civil liberties, and universal suffrage.
    2. Emperor Ferdinand I promised reforms and a liberal constitution.
    3. Serfdom was abolished.
  3. Conflict among the different nationalities (Hungarians against Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians; Czechs against Germans), encouraged by the monarchy, weakened the revolution.
  4. The alliance of the working and middle classes soon collapsed.
  5. The conservative aristocrats crushed the revolution.
  6. Francis Joseph was crowned emperor in 1848.
  7. The Russian army helped defeat the Hungarians.
3. Prussia and the Frankfurt Assembly
  1. Middle-class Prussians wanted to create a unified, liberal Germany.
  2. Inspired by events in France, the working-class people of Prussia demanded and received a liberal constitution from Frederick William IV.
  3. Further worker demands for suffrage and socialist reforms caused fear among the aristocracy.
  4. The Frankfurt National Assembly of 1848 was a middle-class liberal body that began writing a constitution for a unified Germany.
  5. War with Denmark over the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein ended with a rejection of the Frankfurt Assembly by the newly elected Frederick William and the failure of German liberalism.