World History: The Revolutions of 1848

An 1848 painting by Horace Vernet depicting the revolt in Paris

Today we're looking at the last event in what Eric Hobsbawm characterised as being in the 'Age of Revolution'. Later named the 'Springtime of Peoples' beginning in February 1848 revolution swept over Europe - they remain the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. From nobles to labouring poor the masses rose up against autocracy and inequality, but most were crushed within the year resulting in even more autocratic regimes. However, the ideas of 1848, and the consequences of 1848, would continue on in Europe for much longer.

Origins

Europe in the 1840s was a time of transition. German democrat Victor von Unruh stated that 'We live in transitional times. The old has not yet been overcome, the new is still being born.' The legacy of the French Revolution lived on with its ideas of 'liberty, equality, and brotherhood', as well as the new European order created by the Congress of Vienna. Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich helped create a post-Napoleon order where conservative, absolutist powers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia aimed to crush potentially subversive ideas of liberalism, republicanism, socialism, and even nationalism. Regardless these ideas continued to flourish. In 1830 a revolution toppled the autocratic and conservative Bourbon monarchy in France leading to the rise of the July Monarchy under the constitutional monarch Louis-Philippe; however, this monarchy was still repressive and few people could vote and there was another failed revolt in 1832 which featured heavily in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. More radical socialists emerged across Europe and major radicals, such as Karl Marx, were regular sent into exile. National identity started to emerge in divided Germany and Italy, as well as the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. Metternich even tried to use this to his advantage - when Hungarian liberal and nationalist Louis Kossuth was elected to the Diet in the 1830s Metternich ensured that the government started supporting Croatian intellectual Ljudevit Gaj. However, when southern Slav nationalism grew this was withdrew in 1842. The conservative order was being challenged long before 1848 - revolts in France in 1830 and 1832, Galician peasants rose up in 1846, in 1847 bread riots swept Germany, and periodically Britain saw a series of protests by the Chartists who wanted increased suffrage and democracy. 

Eugene Delacroix's Liberty guiding the People depicting 1830

Economic and social issues also played a role in the origins of 1848. Populations started rapidly growing, especially in the cities, but there were issues thanks to harvest failures. This created a domino effect of economic decline - food prices rose, people spent less on manufactured goods, businesses started to collapse and so did the banks. Of course people are aware of inequality when times are good, but it is harder for autocratic regimes to justify themselves when everyone is poorer. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution demographics and economics started changing. Rising industrialisation caused more people to move to the cities, and balance of power shifted. As argued by von Unruh Europe was in transition - using a Marxist stance Europe was transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, or an early-modern economy to our present capitalist one. The old society was giving way to a new one, and naturally problems arose from that. Cholera epidemics are a good example - squalid cities changed thanks to industrialisation made cholera run rampant but states found it hard to deal with them.

Outbreak of Revolt - in Italy

Revolt in Palermo

Often we view the 1848 Revolts as starting in Paris, and the Parisian revolt did offer the spark for continent wide revolt. However, in January our first revolt broke out on Milan. Italy was divided by various states and under the Austrian protection, so nationalism played a role. Austria started taxing Italian states so Milanese nobles started boycotting tobacco on New Year's Day- the most lucrative tax. To frustrate the Milanese the Austrian garrison were encouraged to smoke and on January 3 an Austrian soldiers scuffled with Milanese citizens after a soldier started smoking in someone's face. The 'tobacco riot' led to the deaths of six and the wounding of fifty, and in Venice liberals were arrested in fear that they would also agitate. Not long after a revolt broke out in Sicily. Seeing reforms in Rome by Pius IX and the 'fiercely independent' islanders begrudging the Bourbon monarchy in Naples they decided to celebrate King Ferdinand II's birthday. They built barricades, unfurled an Italian tricolour, and declared 'Long live Italy, the Sicilian Constitution and Pius IX'. Peasants soon joined the revolt and a General Committee was formed under Ruggero Settimo. Hearing the revolt in Sicily the people took to the streets in Naples. Soon enough revolt spread to the Papal States. The once reformist pope Pius IX had started slowing liberal reforms and his own civic guard joined the masses. The revolt in Rome eventually became far more radical, largely thanks to events abroad, and in February 1849 the future unifiers of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Aurelio Saffi and Giuseppe Mazzini, declared the Roman Republic. In France, the revolt was always far more radical.

France

Paris was always a cultural hub of Europe, and there was a joke stating 'When France sneezed Europe caught a cold'. It was thanks to the more radical nature of the French revolt which allowed 1848 to spread. It is quite possible that Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in inspiration from the French revolt. Despite being a constitutional monarchy - and many radicals like Marx, and anarchists including Mikhail Bukharin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon calling it home at some times - the legacy of 1789 made the monarchy very restrictive. Prime Minister Francois Guizot was just one politician who ensured that political discussion remained silenced - insulting the king was banned and one cartoonist joked that pears should be banned as Louis-Philippe resembled one. The suffrage was also very small - only 250,000 could and all were men of wealth. As public meetings were banned 'banquets' were held instead, and Guizot banning of a banquet on 22 February began the revolt. The National Guard, composed of middling and petty bourgeois individuals, joined students and workers (also women) causing a crisis for the Guizot ministry - they had just lost their guard. Guizot resigned, Louis-Philippe panicked and abdicated, and a provisional government was set up in the Hotel de Ville. Although those who made up the representatives were mainly wealthy men their politics were diverse: moderate republicans, dynastic opponents, and even socialists including Louis Blanc and a metalworker called Albert. As what would characterise the 1848 Revolutions after brief success division would splinter the revolt.

Barricades during the June Days

Workers, socialists, and Jacobins feared that 1848 would be a repeat of 1830 - when Louis-Philippe abdicated his son, the Comte de Paris, was made king. Jacobin intellectual, Francois Raspail, marched onto the Hotel on February 25 with a workers' society and got the delegates to declare the Second Republic. Louis and Albert, meanwhile, organised a commission of workers' delegates in the Luxembourg palace to prevent worker exploitation, but it was far less powerful than the Hotel de Ville filled with wealthier individuals. Radical press, political clubs, and the National Guard campaigned for universal manhood suffrage allowing women to become increasingly politicised. Why should only men benefit from the new revolution? Women's clubs and the paper, Voix de Femmes, demanded female suffrage but little came of it. Elections for the new Assembly brought moderates to power angering workers outside of Paris. Louis Blanc had formed National Workshops in order to combat unemployment, but his resignation and failure to properly challenge the issue let the Assembly to start closing them. Angry radicals and workers rose up on June 23 in the 'June Days', but unlike in February the National Guard did as the government wished. Led by Louis Cavaignac the National Guard (numbering 40,000) clashed with even more workers and their families. 10,000 were killed (mostly workers) and 4,000 insurgents exiled to Algeria in what political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville described as 'a class struggle, a sort of servile war'. Marx described the Second Republic as 'the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the sabre'. The French Revolt spread quickly across Europe thanks to the newly emerged modern press and telegraph. American charge d'affairs in Vienna William H. Stiles stated that it 'fell like a bomb amid the states and kingdoms of the Continent: and, like reluctant debtors threatened with legal terrors, the various monarchs hastened to pay their subjects the constitutions which they owed them.'

Habsburg Empire in Revolt

The Habsburg ruled Austrian Empire was prime for revolt. It was struggling to industrialise, intensely conservative, autocratic, and starting to be divided by emerging nationalism. Revolution was proven to be contagious when Metternich resigned. Telegraphs and the Augsburger Zeitung brought news of the abdication of Louis-Philippe to the Austrian Empire, and in the Hungarian Diet Lajos Kossuth, whom we met earlier, declared that 'the pestilent air [of Habsburg absolutism]...dulls our nerves and paralyses our spirit' and that Hungary should be 'independent, national and free from foreign interference'. Kossuth wasn't too radical - he advocated keeping the Emperor as the King of Hungary. Students at the University of Vienna started petitioning for freedom of the press, religion, speech and teaching with participation in government, and a new Germany. In March they started protesting and were joined by workers. Workers, students, men, and women clashed with troops in Vienna and the government decided to dismiss the hated Metternich who fled to Britain. Metternich's resignation opened the floodgate for revolution: Hungarians started moving towards independence, Czech students protested in Prague and formed barricades demanding the implementation of Czech and possible independence, German Jews in Prague (like Ignaz Kuranda in Grenzboten) tried to defend the German minority and Jewish rights, and in Galicia (now Ukraine and Poland) demanded Ukrainian to be taught and implemented. As we shall see, the Habsburg revolts soon became overtaken by counterrevolution.

Revolt in Germany

The Frankfurt Assembly

Like Italy, what would become Germany was divided by various states united by language and a customs union called the Zollverein. The two main powers were Prussia and Austria - the two conservative powers of Central Europe. Inspired by France revolt first broke out in 'Third Germany', the various German states that weren't Prussia or Austria, first in Baden. A common occurrence in these revolts was a rural-urban divide which played out in Baden - attempts to entice peasants failed when they asked 'What does freedom of the press mean to us? Freedom to eat is what we want.' In Cologne the Communist League encouraged artisans to demonstrate in March and across the Rhine insurgents attacked steamships which, in turn, caused propertied liberals to encourage reform. At the start of March Prussia's capital of Berlin saw revolution - students, artisans, and tradespeople gathered in the Tiergarten clashing with troops. Unexpectedly, Frederick William IV agreed to a constitution, free press, and a new assembly - after seeing the same masses who toppled Louis-Philippe and Metternich he feared the same would happen. Clashes still happened causing him to remove the troops and many liberals were soon elected into the new assembly. 

Nationalists, both liberal and radical, hoped to use the 1848 Revolutions to unite Germany so began organising the Frankfurt Assembly - organised in May it was an attempt to unite all of Germany. When we get to nationalism we will again see how early German nationalism could be quite inclusive - if you lived in a German state you were a German in their eyes which caused leading Czech nationalist Frantisek Palacky to reject the offer to attend stating that he spoke Czech, not German. Liberals overwhelmingly were represented in the Frankfurt Assembly - most came from wealthier backgrounds including lawyers, publishers, businessmen (specifically men), and industrialists. The Assembly saw both moderation and radicalism - all were deemed German, Jews were emancipated, and freedom of the press, religion, and speech were guaranteed, but universal suffrage was initially rejected, women were not emancipated, and they wanted Frederick William to be king. The Assembly failed through division between moderates and radicals, and Frederick William refused to accept 'a crown from the gutter'. 

Other Revolts

There are many different revolts which took place in 1848 so we'll just cover a few of them.

Poland - Poland had been divided between several states (Prussia, Russia and Austria) by the end of the 1790s but, of course, this did not destroy Polish national identity. Due to this it was difficult for a Polish national movement to emerge across all the former territories, and as a result other states helped crush revolts. In 1830 Polish nationalists rose up in Russia so Prussia helped crush the revolt. Poland was also being colonised by Prussian farmers and the Prussian state even reversed their antisemitic policies in just that area. To build support among Polish Jews against Poles Prussia started emancipating them - an irony considering in the west Prussia was implementing more antisemitic policies. Thanks to events in Berlin in Poland benefited - exiles could return, prisoners were released, and increased autonomy was granted. Polish reformers refused to work with Jews or Germans alienating them so when an uprising did take place it could only find support from Polish communities. The Prussian army then managed to defeat the uprising and all grants of autonomy were scrapped.

The 'March Days' in Stockholm

Scandinavia and Switzerland - Scandinavia was not immune from revolt. Protesters in Stockholm rioted on March 18 demanding a constitution which were soon dispersed. Denmark in January had been facing liberal and peasant protests so these led to marches for a constitutional monarchy in Copenhagen when a new king came to the throne. He quickly signed a constitution granting their demands, however, Schleswig-Holstein was left unmentioned. This was a Danish-German duchy under Denmark's rule. Events in Denmark and Germany caused the duchy to rise up hoping to come under German rule after the Danish constitution hoped to put the duchy under Copenhagen's direct rule. The First Schleswig War broke out as German states battled the Danish over the duchy - an 1852 treaty left the duchy free but under Danish supervision. Meanwhile, in Switzerland there were fears that the recently ended civil war could flare up again. The Catholic cantons, wanting to escape Protestant rule, had tried to secede in a short civil war. Wanting to avoid this a new constitution was quickly made forming a federal state which ended the near independence of the cantons.

Ireland - For a long time Ireland had been ruled by Britain and a settle community had emerged. Protestant farmers from the 1600s had dominated Ireland largely from Dublin and Ulster at the expense of the Catholic population. Attempts to enforce English, British laws and customs, and years of repression had led to various nationalist movements. One such was the Young Ireland movement. Ireland also faced genocide in the 1840s - failure of the potato crop caused a famine which the British government did little to solve. Making matters worse, fearing the famine would increase nationalist urges, the Crime and Outrage Bill was passed in 1847. On 29 July seeing the uprisings the Young Irelanders rose up - it was soon crushed.

Where did it not Hit?

Chartists in London

Revolution did not sweep over Europe equally. Only the most democratic and industrialised states, and the least industrialised and most autocratic escaped full blown revolt. Popular protests in Belgium were diffused, much to the dismay of radicals, by a quick expansion of suffrage, and likewise in the Netherlands the king issued a quick liberal constitution. As states had quickly responded this undercut radical demands before they could take root in public discourse. Meanwhile, on April 10 the quasi-socialist Chartists organised a protest of between 50,000-100,000 at Kennington Common in London. The Chartists were a working-class movement wanting to expand the electorate, introduce secret ballots, abolish property qualifications for suffrage and political office, and payment for Members of Parliament. However, thanks to previous expansion of the suffrage, and their association with socialism, had left the Chartists isolated, and news from France alienated the rest of the country from possible domestic radicals. As a result the Chartists were soon dispersed. In Russia we did not see revolt because of the strength of absolutism and a lack of industry. News of revolt found it harder to spread to Russia so it could be quickly silenced, and nationalist movements (like with the Poles) found it hard to communicate. To organise a movement when you cannot properly coordinate - it is no coincidence that when Russia properly started industrialising from the 1850s that revolts were more common. Russia even helped crush some of the revolts in other states.

Why did they Fail?

Casino Savorelli after bombardment by French forces

One key reason explains why 1848 failed: division. A common trend was that when more radical, often urban working-class, voices started taking hold the liberal moderates sided with conservative forces. Following the June Days the provisional government used a now conservative National Guard to oust radical voices, and the elections in December even brought Napoleon's nephew, Louis, to power. In Germany the Frankfurt Assembly was intensely divided between moderates and radicals, as well as what Germany should be. There were advocates for Grossdeutschland (including Austria), and Kleindeutschland (excluding Austria); Catholics didn't want to be under the rule of a Protestant state (and vice versa); and moderates wanted a monarchy compared to radicals which didn't. Prussia soon ignored the Assembly issuing a 'monarchist' constitution, and after defeating the revolution in its own borders Austria turned on the southern German states - the biggest supporters of the Assembly. In Italy the rural peasantry had been excluded from enfranchisement so in Naples when the king attempted to reverse the constitution the peasants refused to help the urban bourgeoisie allowing them to be defeated. The radical Roman Republic initially won support by abolishing hated taxes, employing unemployed labourers to repair monuments and slums, and dividing land among the peasants, but their anti-clericalism alienated the religious masses. Appealing to his own conservative Catholic supporters Louis Napoleon sent troops to destroy the Republic and restore the pope. The Austrian military soon ousted revolutionaries in Italy, Vienna, Bohemia and Hungary crushing the revolt there. Again a moderate-radical, national, and urban-rural divide aided in this - Magyar gentry helped organise against Budapest radicals who, in turn, had allowed the Austrian army take Vienna. Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his young nephew, Franz Joseph, who would rule until the end of the First World War.

Conclusion and Legacies

This cartoon effectively shows the results of 1848: German princes hide behind Prussia sweeping revolt away, revolutionaries fleeing across the Atlantic, Austria and Magyar gentry dismember Hungary, and Britain mocks the continent ignoring starving people in its own borders

On the surface 1848 was indeed a 'Springtime of Peoples': a brief time in the sun. Poles, Germans, Danes, Italians, Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Jews, Serbs, Croats, Romanians, and Irish had all protested or revolted for autonomy as ideas of liberalism and socialism dominated discourses. However, divisions between nationalities, class, and location spelled their end - Robert Gildea has argued that if France had possibly looked outward they might have found more success. Despite Marx's and Engels' call for 'workers of the world unite!' the workers were divided, The Communist Manifesto little read until after the revolution, and working-class revolt was crushed. Louis Napoleon, who would soon crown himself emperor, Franz Joseph and Frederick William would ensure conservative forces dominated Europe - Prussia's conservative powerhouse Otto von Bismarck entered politics just after 1848. In the long-term 1848 would see success. Nationalism and socialism soon came to dominate the late-nineteenth century: socialists soon came to be a major force (especially in Germany), a working-class revolt broke out in Paris in 1871, Italy and Germany unified, and new national movements emerged. Austria initially seemed unstoppable but gave way - martial law was eventually lifted, liberal reforms started to be passed, and national groups were given autonomy. In 1867 Austria became Austria-Hungary to reflected the strength of nationalism. 1848 was a turning point for Europe, and the 'Springtime of Peoples' was not so short-lived.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe, 1800-1914, Second Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

-Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution, (London: Abacus, 2008)

-Priscilla Robertson, Revolutions of 1848: A Social History, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952)

-Frank Eyck, (ed.), The Revolutions of 1848-49, (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1972)

-David Blackbourn, The Fontana History of Germany, 1780-1918, (London: Harper Collins, 1997)

-'1848: Year of Revolution', BBC In Our Time Podcast, 19/01/2012

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: Abacus, 1975)

-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (London: Penguin, 1848/2015)

Thank you for reading. The next World History post will look at abolitionism, and the successes and failures of the end of slavery. For other World History posts we have a list. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.