Therevolutions of 1848, also known as thespringtime of the peoples,[2] were a series ofrevolutions throughout Europe over the course of over a year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespreadrevolutionary wave inEuropean history to date.[3]
The revolutions varied widely in their aims but generally opposed conservative systems, such asabsolute monarchy andfeudalism, and sought to establishnation states, founded onconstitutionalism andpopular sovereignty. The revolutionary wave began with theSicilian revolution in January and spread across Europe after theFrench revolution in February 1848.[4][5] Over 50 countries were affected, but with no significant coordination or cooperation among their respective revolutionaries. Some of the major political contributing factors were widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership, demands for moreparticipation in government and democracy, forfreedom of the press, and by theworking class for economic rights, and the rise ofnationalism.[6] Other economic factors, such as theEuropean potato failure, triggered mass starvation, migration, and civil unrest.[7]
The uprisings were led by temporary coalitions of workers and reformers, including figures from the middle and upper classes (thebourgeoisie); however these coalitions did not hold together for long. Many of the revolutions were quickly suppressed, as tens of thousands of people were killed, and even more were forced into exile. Despite this, significant lasting reforms included the abolition ofserfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction ofrepresentative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands,Italy, theAustrian Empire, and the states of theGerman Confederation that would make up theGerman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The wave of uprisings ended in October 1849.
The revolutions arose from a wide variety of causes, which were linked to the short- and long-term socioeconomic transformations brought about by industrialization and the political legacy of theFrench Revolution.[8] These included the adoption ofmodern agricultural practices and subsequent rapid population growth, the intensification of industrialization and urbanization, the spread of oppositional ideologies, namelyliberalism,radicalism, andnationalism, the emergence of thebourgeoisie over thearistocracy as the most powerful class in Europe, and its rivalry with the growingworking class.[8] In addition to longer term trends, an acute economic crisis between 1845 and 1847, resulting from the combination of afood crisis and an industrial recession, led to significant civil unrest and revolutionary agitation.[9][10] According toJonathan Sperber, the failure of governments to adjust to popular demands for reform in the wake of these crises provided the immediate trigger for the revolutions, with the conditions for their outbreak having already been met by the end of 1847.[5]
In Western and Central Europe, discontent was widely felt against the existing political and economic regimes as living standards declined essentially uniformly among the poorer classes. Much of this discontent stemmed from the "decorporation" of society through the decline of the traditional systems ofguilds andfeudal relations in favor of capitalist enterprise and private land ownership. Other factors resulting from this transition, specifically overpopulation, the exploitation of labourers and the competitive "race to the bottom" to reduce wages, also played a major role.[11][12] The most visible fault lines resulting from the decline of the traditional economy were the conflicts between peasants and landowners (both feudal and private) and employers and workers.
Galician Massacre (Polish:Rzeź galicyjska) byJan Lewicki — This painting depicts the fictional rewarding of Polish peasants by Austrian authorities for massacring their lords, who had attempted an uprising to reestablish an independent Polish state.[13]
According to Jonathan Sperber, conflict over agricultural land rights was the most prevalent form ofsocial conflict in the pre-revolutionary period.[14] The abolition of feudalism in parts of Western and Central Europe (especiallyin France) in the wake of theFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had major ramifications for the rural populace. Customary rights that peasants had once held oncommon land, especially to acquire wood from communal forests, were increasingly lost with theenclosure and privatization of the commons.[15] These processes were often aided by modernizing states, such as France, which, with the enactment of the Forest Code of 1827, legally abolished peasants' rights to forests and the wood within them.[16]
Peasants resorted to both legal and violent means to reclaim their land rights. Lawsuits were frequently filed by peasants against landowners, and could remain active for decades;[17] one such lawsuit in Sicily was first brought in 1829 and not settled until 1896.[18] Peasants also stole wood from privatized forests or occupied them to reassert their land rights by force.[17] Wood theft in particular was widespread in parts of Germany. Between the 1820s and 1840s, the number of those convicted of wood theft in theBavarian Palatinate increased from 100,000 in 1829–30 to 185,000 in 1846–47, accounting for a third of the population, and attempts to suppress wood theft in the same period byPrussia led to what Sperber called a "minor civil war"[17] in theprovince of Westphalia.[19] Unrest among the peasantry was also widespread in regions that retained feudalism, as in parts of Central Europe and most of Eastern Europe, though this had been commonplace for several centuries.[20] Disputes and revolts were directed variously at oppressive lords, taxation and military conscription by the state, and religious authorities.[21] The largest pre-revolutionary peasant uprising against feudal lords occurredin Austrian Galicia in 1846, which put an end to theKraków Uprising by thePolish nobility.[21]
Silk weavers inLyonrevolted in 1831 and 1834 in response to the refusal of their employers to pay agreed rates for their labour. Their motto was "Live working or die fighting" (French:Vivre en travaillant, mourir en combattant).[22][23]
In towns and cities, social conflict centered on conflicts between employers and workers. The most persistent conflicts were betweenmaster tradesmen andjourneymen, who had long struggled for influence within the guild system.[24] New disputes were also emerging between merchants and outworkers, or contracted workers as part of theputting-out system;[23] these workers were often also artisans, including both master tradesmen and the journeymen and apprentices they hired.[25] As with the peasantry, discontent among urban workers largely stemmed from the transition away from traditional modes of production and toward a capitalist economy. Workers protested for theright to work andfreedom of association, which had been lost with the decline of the guilds,[26] as they underwentproletarianization and felt their status in society deteriorate.[27]
Rapid population growth was the most serious issue affecting urban workers, as migration into the cities due to poor conditions in the countryside led to a major oversaturation of labour markets and a decline in real wages among workers, while the cost of living continued to increase.[28] Poor workers became more vulnerable to economic shocks, and the inability to afford foodstuffs other than potatoes and bread proved catastrophic amid a majorfood crisis affecting both between 1845 and 1847.[29] Artisans, especially journeymen, were particularly affected, becoming increasinglyalienated from their labour and proletarianized as the trades became overfilled and work was unavailable, turning to revolutionary agitation to regain their status.[30][31] Although much of this agitation was directed at master tradesmen, in some cases the two classes found common cause against the capitalist merchants who contracted them.[32][33] Conflict between merchants and outworkers, especially in thetextile industry, was primarily over payment disputes, as merchants frequently underpaid outworkers for their finished products to maximize profit.[34] There was also a growing sense of insecurity among artisans as their trades mechanized, undercutting their handicrafts and leading to unemployment, further threatening their economic agency.[35][36] These disputes led to civil unrest, including uprisings by weaversin Lyon in 1831 and 1834, and inPrague andin Silesia in 1844.[37][23]
The educated middle class were also affected by the decline in living standards. Across Western Europe, industrialization had increased the demand for professionals to support the new industries.[38] Societal expectations also began to favor education andcareerism as means to achieve upward mobility, especially after the French Revolution. As a result, more young men across Europe enrolled in universities, expecting, according to Lenore O'Boyle, that "the diploma might do what a title of nobility had once done"[39] and they would achieve positions of leadership in society.[40] In the more industrialized economies of Britain and United States, more educated men were able to find work in private businesses, and consequently there was little to no revolutionary agitation among them in 1848. In Europe, however, where the pace of industrialization lagged, the only available professional careers were in the civil service, which could not open enough positions to meet demand.[40]
The lack of work led to dissatisfaction among the educated, who felt that they were unable to live as their status demanded.[41] This issue was most pronounced in Germany, where overcrowding in professional careers was so severe that it gave rise to what sociologistWilhelm Heinrich Riehl termed an "intellectual proletariat" of "underpaid and aspiring lower civil servants, journalists, and schoolteachers". The intellectual proletariat was so numerous in Germany that, according to Riehl, they, not manual labourers, comprised "the real proletariat".[42] Similar issues were reported in France, with politicianSaint-Marc Girardin remarking that the educated constituted a "floating mass of unemployed and inconstant [persons] who form an army always available to the ambitious and the instigators of revolt", although contemporary records showed that the issue was exaggerated.[43] Mass underemployment among journalists was particularly pressing. Journalism was seen as "the last refuge" for those who could not find work elsewhere, especially in Germany, and journalists were seen as politically dangerous, having been major organizers of theJuly Revolution in 1830, and later of the revolutions of 1848.[44][45]
An anti-clerical and anti-aristocratic print, published in Germany in 1845. The text reads: "Eyes Open!!!—Neither the nobility, nor the clergy will oppress us any longer; they have broken the backs of the people for too long."[46]
New political ideologies were emerging in the 1840s that would go on to influence the revolutions in 1848, withliberalism,radicalism, andnationalism being the principal opposition movements to European governments.
Liberals formed a distinct political force in the 19th century but varied widely in their beliefs.[47] Generally, liberals supportedequality before the law and the protection ofcivil liberties, such as thefreedoms of speech,the press,association,religion, and especiallyto own property,[48] and favouredconstitutions to achieve such. They opposed bothabsolute monarchies andradical republics, which they viewed as equally despotic, and favouredconstitutional monarchies as a balance between the two extremes.[49][50] They favouredpopular sovereignty, but made a distinction between "the people" and "the rabble". To that end, liberalism generally sought arestriction of the franchise to male property-owners, as, according to Jonathan Sperber, "[o]nly people capable of forming an independent judgment, liberals felt, should be eligible to vote."[51] As an opposition movement, liberals were reluctant to engage in revolution or seek popular support due to their fears of a radical takeover and violentmob rule, as they had experienced during the French Revolution under theJacobins and theReign of Terror.[52] Liberals saw gradual, political reforms andeconomic development through free markets, industrialization, and public education as means by which more men could become property-owners and enter into political life.[53][54]
Radicalism was even more loosely defined than liberalism, generally representing the coalition ofdemocrats andsocialists.[55][56] Radicals differed from moderate liberals in their support fordemocracy anduniversal manhood suffrage, extending the franchise to all adult men.[55] Both liberals and radicals shared in their opposition to "backwards" institutions, and especially in theiranti-clericalism, which was considered synonymous with liberal and left-wing thought, though radicals were notably more violent in their opposition.[57] While liberals were generally more concerned with political and legal reform and the expansion of civil liberties as the best means to achieve societal equality,[58] radicals placed greater weight on social reform, especially in relation to the "social question", or the question of how to address the growth and precarity of theworking poor.[55] Radicals were opposed to capitalist competition, which they considered responsible for various social ills, but were divided as to how to address it.[59] Radical democrats generally sought, as Sperber writes, "to rectify the disproportion between capital and labour" through regulation and state intervention, whereas socialists sought theabolition of capitalism andeconomic redistribution.[60] Both democrats and socialists were, however, united in their desire to overthrow the existing regimes through revolution.[56]
"Nationalism" promoted the unity and primacy of people bound by some mix of commonlanguage,culture,religion, sharedhistory anddestiny, and immediategeography.[61] There were alsoirredentist movements. Nationalism had developed a broader appeal during the pre-1848 period, as seen in theFrantišek Palacký's 1836History of the Czech Nation, which emphasized a national lineage of conflict with the Germans, or the popular patrioticLiederkranz (song-circles) that were held across Germany: patriotic and belligerent songs aboutSchleswig had dominated theWürzburg national song festival in 1845.[62]
The beginning of thecampagne des banquets in France on 9 July 1847. Public festivities such as banquets were a common form of political participation in the pre-revolutionary period.
Political participation was increasing in the pre-revolutionary period, though it was limited in scope and what forms existed were heavily restricted by state authorities.[63] The most basic form of political participation and expression, and the means by which political awareness as a whole was expanding, was in the reading, writing, and publishing ofnewspapers.[63] Papers such as theRheinische Zeitung (edited byKarl Marx) andDeutsche Zeitung in Germany andLa Réforme in France became outlets for oppositional thought, and their editorial staff became leaders of oppositional movements in lieu of political parties and organizations, which were largely banned.[64] Informal political organizations existed to a degree in informal social circles, such asreading clubs,coffeehouses, andMasonic lodges.[65] Formal political organizations existed as illegalsecret societies, many of which attempted to organize unsuccessful uprisings in the pre-revolutionary period, such as theYoung Europe organizations ofGiuseppe Mazzini and the severalCarbonarist societies led byLouis Auguste Blanqui.[66][67]Mass politics was carried out through public celebrations, such as festivals and banquets, which were organized asde facto political rallies to circumvent state restrictions on them.[64]
Although it was becoming more accessible, "politics" was still practised only by the educated.[68] Most people were entirely disconnected from politics before 1848,[69] and discontented peasants and workers who engaged in social conflict largely sought immediate economic remediation over political change.[68][70] Attempts to organize them by politically-minded agitators likewise failed;[71] rebel weavers during the secondCanut revolt in 1834 were "generally reluctant" to accept the leadership of republicans,[72] and, during the revolutions in 1848, Viennese radicalHans Kudlich remarked that his attempts to mobilize the Austrian peasantry had "disappeared in the great sea of indifference and phlegm."[73] However, though they did not seek political change, their demands were often revolutionary in nature, and their unrest could be implicitly political, as with the Canut revolts, or have political undertones, as with the Galician uprising in 1846.[74] As Jonathan Sperber writes, "peasants trying to murder a tax-collector or outworking weavers screaming curses at the merchant who employed them [...] were implicitly suggesting a different way of running things."[68]
According to economic historians Helge Berger and Mark Spoerer, the most immediate cause of the revolutions of 1848 was the multitudinal economic crisis between 1845 and 1847.[9] The crisis began with a majorfood crisis in Europe in 1845.Phytophthora infestans, the microorganism responsible for potato blight, arrived in Europe from North America around 1840 and spread rapidly during a period of unusually wet weather in 1845, devastating harvests across Northern Europe.[10] Potatoes had become astaple food due to their highnutritional value and affordability, and were being grown on a large scale to feed growing populations, especially in Northern Europe.[75][76] The effects of the potato blight were most severe inIreland, where theGreat Famine directly killed over an eighth of the population, or over 1 million people out of a population of 8 million. Other countries, including Scotland, Belgium, and the Netherlands saw similar damage to crops, with 60,000 deaths in the Netherlands due to the potato blight.[77] Drought conditions in 1846 stopped the spread of the potato blight but damaged grain harvests, resulting in a sharp increase in food prices across the continent, and consequently virtually all foodstuffs became unaffordable for the poor.[78] Food riots erupted across Europe as the poor attempted by force to stave off starvation, with over 400 such riots in France between 1846 and 1847 and 164 riots in the German states in 1847.[75][a]
Although famine was averted in most countries through strong government intervention,[b] the rising cost of food, coupled with poor cotton harvests from theSouthern United States necessary for textile manufacture, led to a major industrial recession in 1847.[80][81] Unemployment andpauperism spread rampantly among urban communities: according toChristopher Clark, by 1847 a fifth of the population inFriesland in the Netherlands were receiving relief from the state, or 47,482 out of 245,000 people; and in the same period, "the number of residents officially classified as poor in German towns could swell to two thirds or even three fourths of the population".[82] Berger and Spoerer found a strong correlation among the countries that were most deeply affected by the industrial shock of 1847 and those that underwent a revolution in 1848.[83][c]
Map of Europe during the revolutions, showing major events, revolutionary centres, reactionary troop movements, and states with abdications and national conflicts.
The worldwide revolutions appeared in so many places, and were in large part successful in a great number of cases. Agitators who had been exiled by the old governments rushed home to seize the moment. In France, themonarchy was once againoverthrown and replaced by a republic. In a number of major German and Italian states, and in Austria, the old leaders were forced to grant liberal constitutions. The Italian and German states seemed to be rapidly forming unified nations. Austria gave Hungarians and Czechs liberal grants of autonomy and national status.[85]
In France, bloody street battles exploded between middle class reformers and working class radicals. German reformers argued frequently without coming to solid conclusions.[86]
Autumn 1848: Reactionaries organize for a counter-revolution
Some revolutions suffered defeats in summer 1849. Reactionaries returned to power and many leaders of the revolution went into exile. Some social reforms proved permanent, and years later nationalists in Germany, Italy, and Hungary gained their objectives.[87][further explanation needed]
The first of the numerous revolutions to occur in 1848 in Italy came in Palermo, Sicily,starting in January 1848.[88] There had been several previous revolts againstBourbon rule; this one produced an independent state that lasted only 16 months before the Bourbons were restored to the throne. During those months, the constitution was quite advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of a unifiedItalian confederation of states.[89] The revolt's failure was reversed 12 years later as the BourbonKingdom of the Two Sicilies collapsed in 1860–61 with theunification of Italy.[90]
In theDuchy of Modena and Reggio,Duke Francis V attempted to respond militarily to the first attempts at armed revolt, but faced with the approach of Bolognese volunteers to support the insurgents, in order to avoid bloodshed he preferred to leave the city promising a constitution and amnesties. On 21 March 1848 he left for Bolzano. A provisional government was established in Modena. In thePapal States, an internal revolt ousted Pope Pius IX from his temporal powers and led to the establishment of theRoman Republic.
The municipalities ofMenton and Roquebrune united and obtained independence from the Principality ofMonaco, becoming a protectorate of theKingdom of Sardinia, and would eventually join Sardinia in 1861.[92]
Alexis de Tocqueville remarked in hisRecollections of the period: "society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror."[95]
The "March Revolution" in the German states took place in the south and the west of Germany, with large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations. Led by well-educated students and intellectuals,[96] they demandedGerman national unity,freedom of the press, andfreedom of assembly. The uprisings were poorly coordinated, but had in common a rejection of traditional, autocratic political structures in the 39 independent states of theGerman Confederation. The middle-class and working-class components of the Revolution split, and in the end, the conservative aristocracy defeated it, forcing many liberalForty-Eighters into exile.[97]
Denmark had been governed by a system of absolute monarchy (King's Law) since the 17th century. KingChristian VIII, a moderate reformer but still an absolutist, died in January 1848 during a period of rising opposition from farmers and liberals. The demands for constitutional monarchy, led by theNational Liberals, ended with a popular march toChristiansborg on 21 March. The new king,Frederick VII, met the liberals' demands and installed a new Cabinet that included prominent leaders of theNational Liberal Party.[98]
The national-liberal movement wanted to abolish absolutism, but retain a strongly centralized state. The king accepteda new constitution agreeing to share power with a bicameral parliament called theRigsdag. It is said that the Danish king's first words after signing away his absolute power were, "that was nice, now I can sleep in the mornings".[99] Although army officers were dissatisfied, they accepted the new arrangement. In contrast to the rest of Europe, this was not overturned by reactionaries.[98] The liberal constitution did not extend toSchleswig, leaving theSchleswig-Holstein Question unanswered.
TheDuchy of Schleswig, a region containing both Danes (a North Germanic population) and Germans (a West Germanic population), was a part of the Danish monarchy, but remained a duchy separate from the Kingdom of Denmark. Spurred bypan-Germanist sentiment, the Germans of Schleswig took up arms against a proposal from theNational Liberal government in Copenhagen which would have fully integrated the duchy into Denmark.
The German population in Schleswig and Holstein revolted, inspired by the Protestant clergy. The German states sent in an army, but Danish victories in 1849 led to theTreaty of Berlin (1850) and theLondon Protocol (1852). They reaffirmed the sovereignty of the King of Denmark, while prohibiting union with Denmark. The violation of the latter provision led torenewed warfare in 1863 and the Prussian victory in 1864.
From March 1848 through July 1849, the HabsburgAustrian Empire was threatened by revolutionary movements, which often had a nationalist character. The empire, ruled fromVienna, included German-speakingAustrians,Hungarians,Czechs,Poles,Croats,Ukrainians,Romanians,Rusyns,Slovaks,Slovenes,Serbs andItalians, all of whom attempted in the course of the revolution to achieve either autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities.[citation needed] The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity.
On 15 April, EmperorFerdinand I declared himself a "constitutional monarch", despite there not yet being a constitution. He chargedBaron Franz von Pillersdorf with drafting one, and it was passed on 25 April 1848. This constitution, called thePillersdorf Constitution, applied to the whole of the Habsburg monarchy, except for Hungary. The constitution established theReichstag, a short-lived unicameral parliamentary body. The Reichstag had two goals: to reform the feudal system, and to draft a new constitution. It succeeded in its first goal, abolishing serfdom by a patent issued together with the Emperor on 7 September 1848. In the midst of its work, the Reichstag wasrelocated toKroměříž (German:Kremsier) inMoravia due to theVienna Uprising in October 1848. The Reichstag was due to present its liberal constitution, the Kremsier Constitution, on the anniversary of the revolution in 1849, but the abdication of Ferdinand I in favor of his more conservative nephewFranz Joseph I in December 1848 prevented such. As the revolutions came to an end in Europe, the Austrian army dissolved the Reichstag on 7 March 1849, and the imperial government promulgated theMarch Constitution, which strengthened the powers of the emperor.[100]
Hungarianhussars in battle during the Hungarian Revolution
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was the longest in Europe, crushed in August 1849 by the Austrian and Russian armies. Nevertheless, it had a major effect in freeing theserfs.[101] It began on 15 March 1848, when Hungarian patriots organized mass demonstrations inPest andBuda (today Budapest) which forced the imperial governor to accept their12 points of demands. The 12 points included demands for freedom of the press, an independent Hungarian ministry residing in Buda–Pest and responsible to a popularly elected parliament, the formation of a National Guard, complete civil and religious equality, trial by jury, a national bank, a Hungarian army, the withdrawal of foreign (Austrian) troops from Hungary, the freeing of political prisoners, and union withTransylvania.[102] On that morning, the demands were read aloud along with poetry bySándor Petőfi with the simple lines of "We swear by the God of the Hungarians; we swear, we shall be slaves no more".[103]Lajos Kossuth and other liberal nobles in theHungarian Diet appealed to the Habsburg court with demands for representative government and civil liberties.[104] These events resulted inKlemens von Metternich, the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister, resigning. The demands of the Diet were agreed upon on 18 March by EmperorFerdinand I. Although Hungary would remain part of the monarchy throughpersonal union with the emperor, a constitutional government would be founded. The Diet then passed the April laws that established equality before the law, a legislature, a hereditary constitutional monarchy, and an end to the transfer and restrictions of land use.[104]
The revolution grew into a war for independence from theHabsburg monarchy whenJosip Jelačić,Ban of Croatia, crossed the border to restore their control.[105] The new government, led byLajos Kossuth, was initially successful against the Habsburg forces. Although Hungary took a national united stand for its freedom, some minorities of the Kingdom of Hungary, including the Serbs of Vojvodina, the Romanians of Transylvania and some Slovaks of Upper Hungary supported the Habsburg Emperor and fought against the Hungarian Revolutionary Army. Eventually, after one and a half years of fighting, the revolution was crushed when Russian TsarNicholas I marched into Hungary with over 300,000 troops.[106] As result of the defeat, Hungary was thus placed under brutal martial law. The leading rebels like Kossuth went into exile or were executed, the latter including former prime ministerBatthyány and theThirteen Martyrs of Arad. In the long run, the passive resistance following the revolution, along with the crushing Austrian defeat in the 1866Austro-Prussian War, led to theAustro-Hungarian Compromise (1867), which marked the birth of theAustro-Hungarian Empire.
The center of the Ukrainian national movement was inGalicia, which is today divided betweenUkraine andPoland. On 19 April 1848, a group of representatives led by the Greek Catholic clergy launched a petition to the Austrian Emperor. It expressed wishes that in those regions of Galicia where theRuthenian (Ukrainian) population represented the majority, theUkrainian language should be taught at schools and used to announce official decrees for the peasantry; local officials were expected to understand it and the Ruthenian clergy was to be equalized in their rights with the clergy of all other denominations.[107]
On 2 May 1848, theSupreme Ruthenian Council was established. The council (1848–1851) was headed by the Greek-Catholic BishopGregory Yakhimovich and consisted of 30 permanent members. Its main goal was the administrative division of Galicia into Western (Polish) and Eastern (Ruthenian/Ukrainian) parts within the borders of the Habsburg Empire, and formation of a separate region with a political self-governance.[108]
Though both Polish and Ruthenian Galicians had nationalist aspirations, the two groups' interests diverged, with Polish nobles in Ruthenia often having dominion over Ruthenian serfs. Emperor Ferdinand responded to Galician agitation in 1848 by freeing the predominantly Ruthenian serfs, thereby dampening the revolutionary ardor of both groups.[109]
The revolution of 1848 in Bohemia began with the drafting of a list of liberal demands of the Czech population of theCzech lands at the St. Wenceslas Spa inPrague by the wealthier inhabitants of the city in March. These were spurred by the more violent events in Vienna and the news of revolutions sweeping across the continent.[110]
The revolution in the Czech lands was complicated by the friction betweenGerman Bohemians, who were interested in becoming a part of Germany and representation in theFrankfurt National Assembly, the first all-German parliament, and between Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia, who sought Czech nationality.Austroslavism emerged during the revolutions, propagated byFrantišek Palacký, which sought to achiever greater autonomy for the Czech lands, and potentially even a federation, within the Habsburg monarchy, as opposed to potentially all of the Czech lands joining a unified greater Germany.[111]
During 18–19 March, a series of riots known as theMarch Unrest (Marsoroligheterna) took place in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Declarations with demands of political reform were spread in the city and a barricade at Norra Smedjegatan was stormed by the military. In the end, there were 18–30 casualties in total.
Switzerland, already an alliance of republics, also saw an internal struggle. The attempted secession of seven Catholiccantons to form an alliance known as theSonderbund ("separate alliance") in 1845 led to a short civil conflict in November 1847 in which around 100 people were killed. TheSonderbund was decisively defeated by the Protestant cantons, which had a larger population.[112] A new constitution of 1848 ended the almost-complete independence of the cantons, transformingSwitzerland into a federal state.
Polish people mounted a military insurrection against thePrussians in theGrand Duchy of Posen (or theGreater Poland region), a part of Prussia since its annexation in 1815. The Poles tried to establish a Polish political entity, but refused to cooperate with the Germans and the Jews. The Germans decided they were better off with the status quo, so they assisted the Prussian governments in recapturing control. In the long-term, the uprising stimulated nationalism among both the Poles and the Germans and brought civil equality to the Jews.[113]
A Romanian liberal and Romantic nationalist uprising began in June in the principality ofWallachia. Its goals were administrative autonomy, abolition of serfdom, and popular self-determination. It was closely connected with the 1848 unsuccessfulrevolt in Moldavia, it sought to overturn the administration imposed by Imperial Russian authorities under theRegulamentul Organic regime, and, through many of its leaders, demanded the abolition ofboyar privilege. Led by a group of young intellectuals and officers in theWallachian military forces, the movement succeeded in toppling the rulingPrinceGheorghe Bibescu, whom it replaced with a provisional government and aregency, and in passing a series of major liberal reforms, first announced in theProclamation of Islaz.
Despite its rapid gains and popular backing, the new administration was marked by conflicts between theradical wing and more conservative forces, especially over the issue ofland reform. Two successive abortive coups weakened the new government, and its international status was always contested by Russia. After managing to rally a degree of sympathy from Ottoman political leaders, the Revolution was ultimately isolated by the intervention of Russian diplomats. In September 1848 by agreement with the Ottomans, Russia invaded and put down the revolution. According to Vasile Maciu, the failures were attributable in Wallachia to foreign intervention, in Moldavia to the opposition of the feudalists, and in Transylvania to the failure of the campaigns of GeneralJózef Bem (who led a very successful campaign of liberation in the Hungarian Revolution), and later to Austrian repression.[114] In later decades, the rebels returned and gained their goals.
A number of small local riots broke out, concentrated in thesillon industriel industrial region of the provinces ofLiège andHainaut.
The most serious threat of revolutionary contagion, however, was posed by Belgian émigré groups from France. In 1830 the Belgian Revolution had broken out inspired by the revolution occurring in France, and Belgian authorities feared that a similar 'copycat' phenomenon might occur in 1848. Shortly after the revolution in France, Belgian migrant workers living in Paris were encouraged to return to Belgium to overthrowthe monarchy and establish a republic.[116] Belgian authorities expelledKarl Marx himself from Brussels in early March on accusations of having used part of his inheritance to arm Belgian revolutionaries.
Around 6,000 armed émigrés of the "Belgian Legion" attempted to cross the Belgian frontier. There were two divisions which were formed. The first group, travelling by train, were stopped and quickly disarmed atQuiévrain on 26 March 1848.[117] The second group crossed the border on 29 March and headed for Brussels. They were confronted by Belgian troops at the hamlet ofRisquons-Tout and defeated. Several smaller groups managed to infiltrate Belgium, but the reinforced Belgian border troops succeeded and the defeat at Risquons-Tout effectively ended the revolutionary threat to Belgium.
The situation in Belgium began to recover that summer after a good harvest, andfresh elections returned a strong majority to the governing party.[116]
A tendency common in the revolutionary movements of 1848 was a perception that the liberal monarchies set up in the 1830s, despite formally being representative parliamentary democracies, were too oligarchical and/or corrupt to respond to the urgent needs of the people, and were therefore in need of drastic democratic overhaul or, failing that, separatism to build a democratic state from scratch.[citation needed] This was the process that occurred in Ireland between 1801 and 1848.[citation needed]
In Ireland, a current ofnationalist,egalitarian andradicalist republicanism, inspired by theFrench Revolution, had been present since the 1790s – being expressed initially in theIrish Rebellion of 1798. This tendency grew into a movement for social, cultural and political reform during the 1830s, and in 1839 was realized into a political association calledYoung Ireland. It was initially not well received, but grew more popular with theGreat Famine of 1845–1849, an event that brought catastrophic social effects and which threw into light the inadequate response of authorities. The spark for theYoung Ireland rebellion came in 1848 when the British Parliament passed thePrevention of Crime (Ireland) Act 1848, which gave theLord Lieutenant of Ireland the power to organise Ireland into districts and bring policemen of theIrish Constabulary into them at the districts' expense. The act also limited who could own guns and, under penalty, coerced all Irish men between the ages of 16 and 60 to join in a type ofposse comitatus in each district to assist in apprehending suspected murderers when killings took place, or else be guilty of a misdemeanour themselves.[118]
In response, the Young Ireland Party launched a rebellion in July 1848, gathering landlords and tenants to its cause. But its firstmajor engagement against police, in the village ofBallingarry, South Tipperary, was a failure. A long gunfight with around 50 policemen ended when police reinforcements arrived. After the arrest of the Young Ireland leaders, the rebellion collapsed, though intermittent fighting continued for the next year, It is sometimes called theFamine Rebellion (since it took place during the Great Famine).[citation needed]
While no revolution occurred in Spain in the year 1848, a similar phenomenon occurred. During this year, the country was going through theSecond Carlist War. The European revolutions erupted at a moment when thepolitical regime in Spain faced great criticism from within one of its two main parties, and by 1854 a radical-liberal revolution and a conservative-liberal counter-revolution had both occurred.
Since 1833, Spain had been governed by aconservative-liberalparliamentary monarchy similar to and modelled on theJuly Monarchy in France. In order to exclude absolute monarchists from government, power had alternated between two liberal parties: the center-leftProgressive Party, and the center-rightModerate Party. But a decade of rule by the center-right Moderates had recently produced aconstitutional reform (1845), prompting fears that the Moderates sought to reach out to Absolutists and permanently exclude the Progressives. The left-wing of the Progressive Party, which had historical links toJacobinism andRadicalism, began to push for root-and-branch reforms to the constitutional monarchy, notablyuniversal male suffrage andparliamentary sovereignty.
The European Revolutions of 1848 and particularly theFrench Second Republic prompted theSpanish radical movement to adopt positions incompatible with the existing constitutional regime, notablyrepublicanism. This ultimately led the Radicals to exit the Progressive Party to form theDemocratic Party in 1849.
Over the next years, two revolutions occurred. In 1854, the conservatives ofthe Moderate Party were ousted aftera decade in power by an alliance of Radicals, Liberals and liberal Conservatives led by Generals Espartero and O'Donnell. In 1856, the more conservative half of this alliance launched a second revolution to oust the republican Radicals, leading to a new 10-year period of government by conservative-liberal monarchists.
Taken together, the two revolutions can be thought of as echoing aspects of theFrench Second Republic: theSpanish Revolution of 1854, as a revolt by Radicals and Liberals against the oligarchical, conservative-liberal parliamentary monarchy of the 1830s, mirrored theFrench Revolution of 1848; while the Spanish Revolution of 1856, as a counter-revolution of conservative-liberals under a military strongman,Leopoldo O'Donnell, had echoes ofLouis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup against the French Second Republic.
Illustration of the "March troubles" in Stockholm, Sweden in 1848
TheUnited Kingdom, Belgium, theNetherlands,Portugal, theRussian Empire (includingPoland andFinland), and theOttoman Empire did not encounter major national or Radical revolutions in 1848.Sweden andNorway were also little affected.Serbia, though formally unaffected by the revolt as it was a part of the Ottoman state, actively supported Serbian revolutionaries in the Habsburg Empire.[119]
In some countries, uprisings had already occurred demanding reforms similar to those sought in the Revolutions of 1848, but with little success. This was the case for theKingdom of Poland and theGrand Duchy of Lithuania, which had seen a series of uprisings before or after but not during 1848: theNovember Uprising of 1830–1831; theKraków Uprising of 1846 (notable for being quelled by the anti-revolutionaryGalician slaughter), and later on theJanuary Uprising of 1863–1865.
In other countries, the relative calm could be attributed to the fact that they had already gone through revolutions or civil wars in the preceding years, and therefore already enjoyed many of the reforms which Radicals elsewhere were demanding in 1848. This was largely the case for Belgium (theBelgian Revolution in 1830–1831); Portugal (the largeLiberal Wars of 1828–1834, and the minor civil war ofPatuleia in 1846–1847); and Switzerland (theSonderbund War of 1847)
In yet other countries, the absence of unrest was partly due to governments taking action to prevent revolutionary unrest, and pre-emptively grant some of the reforms demanded by revolutionaries elsewhere. This was notably the case for the Netherlands, where KingWilliam II decidedto alter the Dutch constitution to reform elections and voluntarily reduce the power of the monarchy. The same might be said of Switzerland, where a new constitutional regime was introduced in 1848: theSwiss Federal Constitution was a revolution of sorts, laying the foundation of Swiss society as it is today.
While no major political upheavals occurred in the Ottoman Empire as such, political unrest did occur in some of itsvassal states. In Serbia,feudalism was abolished and the power of the Serbian prince was reduced with theConstitution of Serbia in 1838.
In the United Kingdom, while the middle classes had been pacified by their inclusion in the extension of the franchise in theReform Act 1832, the consequential agitations, violence, and petitions of theChartist movement came to a head withtheir peaceful petition to Parliament of 1848. The repeal in 1846 of the protectionist agricultural tariffs – called the "Corn Laws" – had defused some proletarian fervour.[120]
In theIsle of Man, there were ongoing efforts to reform the self-electedHouse of Keys, but no revolution took place. Some of the reformers were encouraged by events in France in particular.[121]
In the United States, opinions were polarized, with Democrats and reformers in favour, although they were distressed at the degree of violence involved. Opposition came from conservative elements, especially Whigs, southern slaveholders, orthodox Calvinists, and Catholics. About 4,000 German exiles arrived and some became fervent Republicans in the 1850s, such asCarl Schurz. Kossuth toured America and won great applause, but no volunteers or diplomatic or financial help.[122]
In Spanish Latin America, the Revolution of 1848 appeared inNew Granada, where Colombian students, liberals, and intellectuals demanded the election of GeneralJosé Hilario López. He took power in 1849 and launched major reforms, abolishing slavery and the death penalty, and providing freedom of the press and of religion. The resulting turmoil inColombia lasted three decades; from 1851 to 1885, the country was ravaged by four general civil wars and 50 local revolutions.[124]
In Mexico, theCentralist Republic led byAntonio López de Santa Anna losthalf of its territory to the United States, includingCalifornia andTexas, in theMexican–American War of 1845–1848. Derived from this catastrophe and chronic stability problems, the Liberal Party started a reformist movement. This movement, via elections, led liberals to formulate thePlan of Ayutla. The Plan written in1854 aimed at removing president Santa Anna from control of Mexico during theSecond Federal Republic of Mexico period. Initially, it seemed little different from other political plans of the era, but it is considered the first act of theLiberal Reform in Mexico.[126] It was the catalyst for revolts in many parts of Mexico, which led to the resignation of Santa Anna from the presidency, never to vie for office again.[127] The next Presidents of Mexico were the liberals,Juan Álvarez,Ignacio Comonfort, andBenito Juárez. The new regime would then proclaim the1857 Mexican Constitution, which implemented a variety of liberal reforms. Among other things, these reforms confiscated religious property, aimed to promote economic development and to stabilize a nascent republican government.[128] The reforms led directly to the so-called Three Years War orReform War of 1857. The liberals won this war but the conservatives solicited the French Government ofNapoleon III for a European, conservative Monarch, deriving into theSecond French intervention in Mexico. Under the puppet Habsburg government ofMaximilian I of Mexico, the country became a client state of France (1863–1867).
In theDutch East Indies, a group of up to six hundredIndo people occupied theHarmonie Club inBatavia in May 1848 to protest against their exclusion from upper-rank colonial posts. Administrators feared the liberal demonstration would spread to the region's Javanese or Chinese and even grow into an independence movement, and the organizers behind the protest were fired and banned from Java entirely.[129]
Liberal democrats looked to 1848 as ademocratic revolution, which in the long run ensuredliberty, equality, and fraternity. Fornationalists, 1848 was the springtime of hope, when newly emerging nationalities rejected the old multinational empires, but the end results were not as comprehensive as many had hoped.Communists denounced 1848 as a betrayal ofworking-class ideals by abourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate demands of theproletariat.[131] The view of the revolutions of 1848 as abourgeois revolution is also common in non-Marxist scholarship.[132][133][134] Tensions over differing approaches between bourgeois revolutionaries and radicals played a major role in the failure of the revolutions.[135] Many governments engaged in a partial reversal of the revolutionary reforms of 1848–1849 as well as heightened repression and censorship. The Hanoverian nobility successfully appealed to the Confederal Diet in 1851 over the loss of their noble privileges, while thePrussian Junkers recovered their manorial police powers from 1852 to 1855.[136][137] In the Austrian Empire, the Sylvester Patents (1851) discardedFranz Stadion'sconstitution and the Statute of Basic Rights, while the number of arrests in Habsburg territories increased from 70,000 in 1850 to one million by 1854.[138] Nicholas I's rule in Russia after 1848 was particularly repressive, marked by an expansion of the secret police (theTretiye Otdeleniye) and stricter censorship; there were more Russians working for censorship organs than actual books published in the period immediately after 1848.[139][140] In France, the works ofCharles Baudelaire,Victor Hugo,Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, andPierre-Joseph Proudhon were confiscated.[141]
In the post-revolutionary decade after 1848, little had visibly changed, and many historians considered the revolutions a failure, given the seeming lack of permanent structural changes. More recently,Christopher Clark has characterized the period that followed 1848 as one dominated by a revolution in government. Governments after 1848 were forced into managing the public sphere and popular sphere with more effectiveness, resulting in the increased prominence of, for example, the PrussianZentralstelle für Pressangelegenheiten (Central Press Agency, established 1850), the AustrianZensur-und polizeihofstelle (Censorship and Police Office), and the FrenchDirection Générale de la Librairie (1856).[142] The conservative Prussian prime ministerOtto von Manteuffel declared that the state could no longer be run like the landed estate of a nobleman.[143] Meanwhile, centrist coalitions, consisting of liberals and conservatives united in their anxiety toward working-class socialism, also took power after the revolutions, such as theConnubio coalition led byCamillo Benso, Count of Cavour in Piedmont–Sardinia.[144][145]Priscilla Robertson considered many of the revolutionaries' goals to have been achieved by the 1870s, though largely by the enemies of the revolutions.Austria andPrussia eliminated feudalism by 1850 and Russiaabolished serfdom in 1861, improving conditions for the peasants. The European middle classes made political and economic gains over the next 20 years, with France retaining theuniversal male suffrage that had been established by theSecond Republic. The Austrian Empire was reorganized into theDual Monarchy, according Hungary moreself-determination as part of theAusgleich of 1867, a process that was spearheaded by the former revolutionariesGyula Andrássy andFerenc Deák.[146][147]
A caricature by Ferdinand Schröder on the defeat of the revolutions of 1848–1849 in Europe (published inDüsseldorfer Monatshefte, August 1849)
Karl Marx expressed disappointment at the bourgeois character of the revolutions.[148][149] Marx elaborated in his 1850 "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League" a theory ofpermanent revolution according to which the proletariat should strengthen democratic bourgeois revolutionary forces until the proletariat itself is ready to seize power.[150]
German historianReinhard Rürup described the 1848 revolutions as a turning point in the development of modernantisemitism. This was expressed through the development of conspiracies that presented Jews as representative of both the forces of social revolution (apparently typified inJoseph Goldmark andAdolf Fischhof of Vienna) and of international capital, as seen in the 1848 report from Eduard von Müller-Tellering, the Viennese correspondent of Marx'sNeue Rheinische Zeitung, which declared that "tyranny comes from money and the money belongs to the Jews".[151]
About 4,000 exiles went to the United States fleeing the reactionary purges. Of these, 100 went to theTexas Hill Country asGerman Texans.[152] More widely, many disillusioned and persecuted revolutionaries, in particular (though not exclusively) those from Germany and the Austrian Empire, left their homelands for foreign exile in the New World or in the more liberal European nations; these emigrants were known as theForty-Eighters.
^Counts in Germany differ between sources:Clark 2023, p. 47 counts 158 riots in Prussia between April–May 1847, whileSiemann 1998, p. 39 counts 103 protests between 1840 and 1847.
^Except Ireland, which did experience a famine due to government inaction and free market policies, such asabsentee landlordism and the prioritization of food exports over relief.[79]
^The sole exception is the Netherlands, which Berger and Spoerer argue experienced a revolution (through its preemptive enactment of theConstitutional Reform of 1848) without having experienced an industrial shock.[84]
^abBerger & Spoerer 2001, p. 295: "We propose that it is precisely these economic crises that are most helpful in explaining the simultaneity and regional distribution of the Europeanturmoil of 1848. In other words, even though ideas and institutions undoubtedly shaped the events in question, it was economic misery and the fear thereof that triggered them."
^Joachim Remak,Very Civil War: The Swiss Sonderbund War of 1847 (1993)
^Krzysztof Makowski, "Poles, Germans and Jews in the Grand Duchy of Poznan in 1848: From coexistence to conflict."East European Quarterly 33.3 (1999): 385.
^Vasile Maciu, "Le caractère unitaire de la révolution de 1848 dans les pays roumains."Revue Roumaine d'Histoire 7 (1968): 679–707.
^Stefan Huygebaert, "Unshakeable Foundations,"Journal of Belgian History 45.4 (2015).
^Weisser, Henry (1981). "Chartism in 1848: Reflections on a Non-Revolution".Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies.13 (1):12–26.doi:10.2307/4049111.JSTOR4049111.
^Fyson, Robert (2016).The Struggle for Manx Democracy. Douglas: Culture Vannin.ISBN9780993157837.
^Timothy Mason Roberts,Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism (2009)
^Saul, J.R. (2012). Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine & Robert Baldwin. Penguin Group (Canada).
^J. Fred Rippy,Latin America: A Modern History (1958) pp. 253–254
^Stoler, Ann Laura (2009).Along the archival grain: epistemic anxieties and colonial common sense. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 81–85.ISBN9780691146362.
^Breunig, Charles (1977),The Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1789–1850 (ISBN0-393-09143-0)
^History Today (1960). p. 668. "... the rising tide of revolutionary bourgeois liberalism in Austrian political life, as demonstrated by students' activities, the March riots of 1848, the rising in Hungary, the open revolt in Vienna itself in October 1848, and the course of the revolution."
^Clark, T. J. (1982).The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France 1848–51 (paperback ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.ISBN9780691003382.
^Csizmadia, Andor (1983). "Hungarian Customary Law Before the Bourgeois Rebellion of 1848".The Journal of Legal History.4 (2): 3–37.doi:10.1080/01440368308530781.
^Columbia Encyclopedia (2020). "The discrepancy of aims between bourgeois revolutionaries such as Alphonse de Lamartine and A. T. Marie and the radicals, led by Louis Blanc, contributed to the eventual failure of the revolution."
^Green, Abigail,Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge, 2001), p. 75
^Barclay, David,Friedrich Wilhelm IV and the Prussian Monarchy 1840–1861 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 190, 231
^Deak, John.Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War (Stanford, 2015), p. 105
^Westwood, J. N.Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History, 1812–1980. Oxford (2002), p. 32
^Goldfrank, David M.The Origins of the Crimean War. London: Longman, (1994), p. 21
^Price, Roger.The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power (Cambridge, 2001), p. 327.
^Brophy, James M.Capitalism, Politics and Railroads in Prussia 1830–1870 (Columbus, 1998), p. 1
^Ferguson, Niall (2000). "The European economy, 1815–1914". In Blanning, T. C. W. (ed.).The Nineteenth Century: Europe 1789-1914. Oxford University Press. pp. 121–22.ISBN9780198731351.
^Mack Smith, Denis (1985).Cavour: A Biography. Knopf. p. 91.ISBN9780394538853.
^Robertson, Priscilla (1952).Revolutions of 1848: A Social History. Princeton University Press. p. 412.ISBN9780691007564.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Marx, Karl (August 2018).The Class Struggle in France, 1848–1850(PDF). Translated by Kuhn, Henry. Socialist Labor Party of America. p. 13. Retrieved9 September 2021.And if then, as shown in the third article of Marx, in the spring of 1850 developments had concentrated the real ruling power in the bourgeois republic that had emanated from the 'social' revolution of 1848 in the hands of the big bourgeoisie ... .
^Kamenka, Eugene; Smith, Francis Barrymore, eds. (1980).Intellectuals and Revolution: Socialism and the Experience of 1848 (1st hardcover ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 131.ISBN9780312418939.
^"Progress and Its Limits: The Revolution of 1848 and European Jewry". Reinhard Rürup in Dowe, Dieter ed.,Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform (Oxford, 2001), pp. 758, 761
Gildea, Robert (2002). "1848 in European Collective Memory". In Evans, Robert; Pogge von Strandmann, Hartmut (eds.).The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction.Oxford University Press. pp. 207–36.ISBN978-0199249978.
Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard;Langewiesche, Dieter (2008). "The European Revolution of 1848: Its Political and Social Reforms, its Politics of Nationalism, and its Short- and Long-Term Consequences". In Dowe, Dieter; Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard; Langewische, Dieter; Sperber, Jonathan (eds.).Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform.Berghahn. pp. 1–23.ISBN978-1-57181-164-6.
Hahn, Hans Joachim (2001).The 1848 revolutions in German-speaking Europe. Themes in modern German history series (1. ed.). Harlow; Munich:Longman.ISBN978-0-582-35765-5.
Hewitson, M. (October 2010). "'The Old Forms are Breaking Up, ... Our New Germany is Rebuilding Itself': Constitutionalism, Nationalism and the Creation of a German Polity during the Revolutions of 1848-49".The English Historical Review.CXXV (516):1173–1214.doi:10.1093/ehr/ceq276.ISSN0013-8266.
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