The European Revolution of 1848

8/7/2019 The European Revolution of 1848

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The European Revolution of 1848

The European Revolution of 1848 represents a widespead emergence of situations where

populist aspirations, or human aspirations as less limited by traditions of respect for

monarchical or religious authority, variously sought constitutional, liberal, nationalist or

socialistic changes in society.

The structure of the states of Europe within and between which the dramatic events of 1848-

1849 were played out was very different from that of today. European political life was then

based upon a number of dynastic states that had been established over many centuries albeit

with some significant modifications as a result of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic

Wars of 1789-1815. At the close of these wars dynastic rulers had been restored to most of the

historic thrones of Europe and dynastic rulers once again sought to exercise sovereign power

whilst (in theory at least) offering justice and protection to their subjects.

In 1848 the Italian peninsula was politically organised into a number of sovereign dynastic

and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due to Papal diplomacy

preferring that no large states should exist in the peninsula as a potential rival to Papal

diplomatic power and influence. This policy had facilitated the formation of a number of city

states north of Rome and south of the Alps that had played a very notable role in European

commerce during the Middle Ages. These same wealthy city states had later become centres

of the European Renaissance.

Similarly in 1848 it was more appropriate to refer to what we now know as Germany as

"The Germanies" or as the "German Confederation". There were a large number of politically

sovereign dynastic and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due

to the policies of several Holy Roman Emperors who, either to ensure support during theirdisputes with the Papacy, or to secure their position in relation to lands over which they were

themselves more immediately sovereign, or to secure the acceptance of their heirs to the

Imperial succession, tended to concede full sovereignty to greater and lesser German princes,

to greater and lesser churchmen, to so-called Free Imperial Cities and even, in cases, to so-

called Free Imperial Knights.

There was a significant "Thirty Years War" between 1617-1648 largely contested in "The

Germanies". The French kingdom became involved in order to frustrate the political and

diplomatic power of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. The French input into the

settlements to this war was in large part directed towards the firm establishment of a

continued decentralisation of political power in The Germanies.

The Habsburgs of Austria were sovereign over immense territories in central and eastern

Europe and had for several centuries, until the abeyance of that title in 1806 due to the

activities of Napoleon Bonaparte, been Holy Roman Emperors. The immense territories ruled

by the Habsburgs had been gathered together largely as a result of dynastic marriages.

One such marriage being that with a princess of the Jagellon dynasty which brought the

kingdom of Hungary into close association with the Habsburg dynasty when her brother

perished in battle in 1526. This merging of dynasties had cultural and linguistic as well as

political implications as the Habsburg administration tended to be supportive of germanic

cultural forms. Bohemia and Hungary had already experienced a longstanding tradition ofgermanic linguistic and cultural exposure as the patterns of trade (and culture) then existing in


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central and eastern europe had been established over several centuries largely under the

influence of the predominantly germanic trading networks of western Europe. Another of the

many outcomes of the "Thirty Years War" was the displacement, by the victorious Habsburg

dynasty, of the indigenous Czech aristocracy in Bohemia by other nobles after the Battle of

the White Mountain of 1620.

It seems also that both ethnic Germans and Slavs had a long history of being present as

ebbing and flowing communities in Bohemia.

Another notable difference between the European state structure in 1848 and that of today is

the position of Poland. In 1848 Poland did not exist. In earlier times it had developed

traditions of elective kingship and of allowing representatives to the Polish Assembly to have

powers of veto over political decisions. These traditions did much to leave Poland as a less

effective participant in the rough and tumble of European diplomacy.

There were actual partitions of Poland in the later eighteenth century where the Russian

Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia all conspired to help themselves tolarge chunks of the Polish kingdom to the extent that Poland had disappeared from the

political map of Europe!!!

It may also be difficult for our own age to appreciate the degree to which dynastic rulers in

earlier times acted in accordance with the belief that their sovereign authority, which might

well be exercised without much in the way of modification through processes of popular

representation, was actually divinely ordained and hence of unquestionable legitimacy.

Dynastic rulers were usually supported by church authorities in this belief. The churches

expected kings to exercise sovereign power as "God's annointed rulers" upholding laws and

offering justice and protection to their subjects.

It should be borne in mind, however, that in many states of Europe at that time traditions of

respect for the powers of dynastic rulers and churches were not as powerful as they had been.

European society was changing, populist ideas about such things as 'the sovereignty of the

people', 'constitutional governance' and a 'romanticisation of cultural nationhood' had gained

currency and tended to undermine acceptance of the traditions of dynastic authority and

governance

Whilst dynastic rulers had been accepted as being sovereign over their dynastic lands

gathered together as they may had been through inheritance, dynastic marriages and wars ofsuccession ideas about popular sovereignty and nationhood inevitably raised questions about

the territory where would-be nations could expect to exercise sovereignty particularly where

more than one "emergent nation" sought to establish itself politically on territories formerly

subject to the rule of one dynastic house.

The following series of five pages which considers the beginnings of the Revolution,

developments in France, German developments, Italian developments, and then the recovery

of political power by the traditional "throne and altar" governments may then do something

towards demonstrating the workings of human nature related aspirations as contributing

notably to the "Unfolding of History".


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The Springtime of the Peoples

The revolution of 1848-1849, sometimes referred to as the Springtime of the Peoples, canperhaps be seen as a particularly active phase in the challenge populist claims to political

power had intermittently been making against the power of the traditional dynastic

governments of Europe.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era (1789-1815) had been brought to a close by

an anti-Napoleonic coalition of Dynastic states who subsequently authorised the restoration of

"legitimate" rulers who had been displaced from their thrones and also authorised a supression

of liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism in order to ensure the continued political

authority of dynastic government.

As with several instances of revolution in Europe previously that of 1848 was to have itsmajor point of origin in France. There were however a number of other episodes elsewhere in

Europe which indicated the readiness of several states for involvement in revolution in the

years just prior to 1848 itself.

Poor grain harvests, the appearance of a serious disease in potato crops, and generally

depressed economic conditions across much of Europe in 1845-6 led to rising food prices,

unemployment, and a radicalisation of political attitudes. Such radicalism was somewhat

encouraged by the election to the Papacy, as Pope Pius IX in June 1846, of an incumbent who

soon thereafter followed policies perceived as being "Liberal" and by the fact of a "federal"

Swiss interest, that was perceived by liberals as being progressive, prevailing in November

1847, over several Cantons leagued in a "Separate Union" or Sonderbund that had been

supported in attempted secession by such reactionary powers as Metternich's Austria.

During these times France was yet a monarchy under Louis Phillipe but with his "Liberal"

monarchy having few real supporters. Elections were held on the basis of quite limited

suffrage, many felt excluded from any possibility of gaining wealth, and others felt that the

bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy compared unfavourably with earlier eras of French Monarchy

or Empire.

On 14th January 1848 the authorities banned a "banquet", one of a series being held in

protest against such things as limitations on the right of assembly and the narrow scope of thepolitical franchise, with the result that the it was postponed by its organisers. Although the

banquet, now set for the 22nd February, was cancelled at the last minute there was some

disturbance in the Paris streets. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipe dismissed Guizot, his

unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the 24th. In the wake of these

dramatic developments there was an establishment of a Provisional Government of a French

Republic. On the 25th February socialists in Paris secured a decree which proclaimed that the

newly formed provisional government would undertake to provide work and would also

recognise workers rights to "combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits of their labour."

The Kingdom of Hungary had come into the Habsburg orbit in 1526 as a result of its then

king perishing in wars against a then expansionary Ottoman Empire and with that king's sisterbeing married to the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand of Austria who later succeeded his brother


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(Charles V) as Holy Roman Emperor. After the critical Battle of Mohacs much of Hungary

was subject to Ottoman control up until 1699 when Ottoman sway over Hungary was

substantially undone by a resurgence of Austrian power. Although successors to the joint

Habsburg-Jagellon dynastic line were crowned as Kings of Hungary amongst their other titles

there had been several instances of Hungarian restiveness over political and confessional

issues. In 1848 such restiveness tended to be towards the establishment of a greater degree ofdistinct existence for the Kingdom of Hungary under an Habsburg ruler as a constitutional

King of Hungary.

The rising tide of cultural and linguistic nationalism which Europe had experienced since

the later eighteenth century was marked, in relation to the position of the Kingdom of

Hungary within the Austrian empire, by demands being made for greater use of the Magyar

tongue. The nationalistic leader Kossuth was prominent at Diets of Pressburg (Bratislava) of

1840 and 1844 in securing the position of the Magyar tongue as the official language, and as

the language of public education. After 1847 the proceedings of the Pressburg Diet were

conducted through Magyar instead of Latin.

The Magyar kingdom had been established after the Magyars, as a powerful and somewhat

martial people, had migrated into the Carpathian basin where they established their sway over

some of the neighbouring Slavic peoples with the result that the kingdom in 1848 was

dominated by the Magyars but was also peopled by various Slav minorities. By this time the

former losses to the Ottoman empire had been recovered and certain territories such as

Transylvania and areas of the Balkans, that had also been won from Ottoman control, were

also seen as being associated with the Kingdom of Hungary. The Latin tongue had been

somewhat accessible to the other ethnicities represented at Pressburg as it was often

represented in classical traditions of education besides being a prominent language of religion

and scholarship. The Magyar tongue was more exclusive to the Magyars and has a reputation

for being difficult to learn.

The Magyars, in fact, only comprised perhaps only four in ten of the population of the

Hungarian Kingdom which was also peopled by Croats, Serbs, Rumanians and others. The

several ethnic groups domiciled under the auspices of the Hungarian Diet were also variously

influenced by romanticisations of their own local traditions of nationality, the Croats, in

particular, had experienced a pronounced development of a romanticised national

conciousness, and were much inclined to resist potential Magyarisation focussing their

aspiration on the recovery of an "Illyrian" language.

Early in 1848, after hearing of the developments in France Kossuth made a speech in supportof a constitutionally defined governmental system for Hungary at a session of the Diet on 4th

March.

"...from the charnel-house of the Viennese system a poison-laden atmosphere steals over us,

which paralyses our nerves and bows us when we would soar. ... the antagonism which has

existed for three centuries between the absolutist government of Vienna, and the constitution

tendency of the Hungarian nation, has not up to this day been reconciled. ..."

There was also unrest in Vienna on 13th March that led to Prince Metternich, the Austrian

statesmen who had done so much since the humbling of Napoleon to organise the Princes of

Europe in opposition to the spirit of Revolution that had been stirring since 1789, losing theconfidence of the Imperial Family and deciding to go into exile.


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Some days later after an incident precipitated street fighting in Berlin, the capital of the

Prussian Kingdom, King Friedrich Wilhelm withdrew his soldiers rather than see even more

fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently, on the 19th

March, called

upon by the populace to stand, bareheaded, whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed

in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed.

The following day a political amnesty brought about the release of the Polish revolutionist

Mieroslawski and his forty followers from their two years of imprisonment at Moabit jail. A

triumphant procession took them from the prison to the palace, in carriages pulled by

enthusiastic Berliners. Mieroslawski waved a black-red-gold banner, proclaiming that Poles

and Germans were brothers. Some Berliners, meanwhile, carried red and white "Polish" flags.

These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" and

"conservative". They were open to being associated with contemporary German Liberalism

and Nationalism having been adopted by "patriotic" Germany in the days of the Wars of

Liberation against Napoleon but were also open to being thought of as being associated with

the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation."

That same day Friedrich Wilhelm rode in a stately progress through the streets of Berlin,

wearing a black-red-gold brassard, accompanied by his generals who also wore black-red-

gold emblems, along with his similarly-decorated ministers. The king presented himself as

behaving as German leaders had in earlier times when they had " grasped the banner in

situations of disorder and placed themselves at the head of the whole people. "

On the 22nd

March the 190 Berliners who had fallen in the street fighting were given a state

funeral with their funeral observances being attended by representatives of all branches of the

government, wearing their golden chains of office.

In early April the Austrian Emperor promised in a Charter of Bohemia that there should be

a responsible government for Bohemia and substantial concessions to the Czech language.

Czech aspiration further sought that Bohemia and Moravia with Silesia should be regarded as

a single administrative unit - "the Lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslaus" - but this was not

conceded.

As March continued, and into April, there was a rush of laws passed by the Hungarian

Diet in support of the administration there being free of Austrian control. Hungary,

Transylvania, and Croatia, styled as "the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen" were deemed a

single state. The Austrian Emperor formally accepted these changes on 11th April. There was,

however, an overt Hungarian Declaration of Independence passed by the Hungarian Diet onthe 14

thApril.

Agitations centred upon Vienna itself led to Lower Austria, the non-Hungarian realms of

the empire, being awarded a somewhat conservative constitution that authorised a bi-cameral

legislature inherently retaining much influence to the dynasty, and required steep property

requirements as a qualification for voting rights to the lower parliamentary chamber. After

continued demostrations the Imperial family departed from "the violence and anarchy of

Vienna" in mid-May and journeyed to provincial Innsbruck leaving behind authorisation for a

unicameral legislature with greatly less restrictive qualifications in relation to voting rights.

From Innsbruck the emperor did not seek to immediately withdraw from his forcedconcessions in relation to the projected Assembly but some revulsion of feeling in


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conservative circles in Vienna allowed his ministers to move to dissolve perhaps the main

wellspring of Viennese radicalism - the hitherto highly vocal and politically influential

Students Legion. It also happened that the University was due to close down for the long

summer vacation.

Czech, Polish and other Slav elements within the lands of the Habsburgs reacted to theevents of 1848 and to the nationalistic and constitutional developments in the Germanic lands

by arranging for a pan-Slav Congress to convene at Prague in early June.

The French revolution of 1848

At the close of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1789-1815) the Bourbon

dynasty was restored in France in the person of a brother of the King who had been sent to the

guillotine during the revolution. This restoration King, Louis XVIII, alienated opinion due to

his absolutist tendencies and his 'legitimate' monarchy was usurped in 1830 with a junior,Orleanist, branch of the dynasty being recognised as Kings of the French rather than as Kings

of France. The King installed in 1830, Louis Phillipe, was himself a son of a Bourbon prince

who had offered some support to the revolution of 1879 and who had become known as Philip

Egalit.

Generally depressed economic conditions across much of Europe in 1845-6 led to rising

food prices, unemployment, and a radicalisation of political attitudes.

During these times France was yet a monarchy under Louis Phillipe but with his "Liberal"

monarchy having few real supporters. Elections were held on the basis of quite limited

suffrage, many felt excluded from any possibility of gaining wealth, and others felt that the

bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy compared unfavourably with earlier eras of French Monarchy

or Empire.

On 14th January 1848 the authorities banned a "banquet", one of a series that had

intermittently been held by 'liberal' interests after July 1847 in Paris, and subsequently widely

across France, in protest at such things as limitations on the right of assembly and the narrow

scope of the political franchise, with the result that the it was postponed by its organisers.

Although the banquet, now set for the 22nd February, was cancelled at the last minute there

were some serious disturbances on the Paris streets on the 22nd and on 23rd February where a

number of fatalaties and serious injuries ensued. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipedismissed Guizot, his unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the

24th.

In the wake of these dramatic developments what had effectively become a French

revolution of 1848 continued with the establishment of a Provisional Government of a French

Republic.

This government was formed in a climate where power needed to be exercised by a central

authority but where there was also a divergence of opinion as to the desireable political and

social outlook of that government. Important figures in the Provisional Government

administration included established moderate, liberal, middle-class, "reformers - now becomerepublicans", such as Lamartaine and Ledru-Rollin. A campaign sponsored by a newspaper


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named Rforme culminated in some more radical persons being accepted into the new

government. These included the prominent French socialist Louis Blanc.

On the 25th February socialists in Paris secured a decree which proclaimed that the newly

formed Provisional Government would undertake to provide opportunities for paid work and

would also recognise workers rights to "combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits oftheir labour." On the 28th a system on "National Workshops" was instituted in relation to this

guarantee of "labour to every citizen".

These revolutionary developments were perhaps more Parisian than French, they were

orchestrated by a radical section of the population of Paris but they did not generally receive

the support of the French provinces. Elections were put in train, on the basis of an Universal

Suffrage which recognised some nine million persons as being competent electors (compared

to the 250,000 previously recognised voters under the previously more restrictive suffrage),

towards the forming of a National Assembly which was to deal with important constitutional

issues.

The National Workshops system set out to offer constant work at a fair wage such that it

soon attracted the services of all the casual labour of Paris and also began to draw in a large

influx of other casual labour from the provinces. Within two or three months there were some

66,000 persons on the payroll - as there proved to be insufficient work for all the facility was

rationed in that those involved reported to the workplace on two days of the week but were

recognised as being entitled to a 'salary of inactivity' payment of one franc per day for other

days. The main initial task tackled by this work scheme being a public works scheme

levelling a small hill - a scenario that did not involve the receipt of revenues to offset the

expense to the public purse. The authorities did not want to sponsor economic activities that

might seem to be in competition with the interests of existing capitalist enterprise. Some

additional taxes were raised, that mainly impacted upon the rural peasantry, in efforts to help

to meet the expense of the National Workshops.

The National or Constituent Assembly resulting from the processes of election convened on

May 4th

1848. Some 900 deputies had been returned to serve in the National Assembly. About

half were returned as supportive of (Orleanist or Legitimist) monarchy rather than

republicanism, about 350 were returned on a clericalist 'freedom of education' ticket, there

were only a handful of committed republicans or socialists. Despite the breadth of the

franchise, that had recognised some nine million persons as being voters, the mainly voting

bloc - the peasantry - proved to be content with the legacy of the 1789-1815 era that had left

them as owners of their farms with the result that they voted for conservative candidates thatwould not threaten the rights of property.

It proved to be the case that the political representatives of France as a whole were not

prepared to endorse many of the policies that were preferred by Parisian radicals. The

administration recognised by the assembly did not include an important role for Louis Blanc.

The Assembly declined to send assistance to the Polish reformers who, in their struggles

against Russian Tsarist authority, enjoyed the sympathies of the French radicals. On May 15th

the National or Constituent Assembly was invaded by persons seeking its overthrow and

replacement by an administration headed up by Louis Blanc.


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In the event the National Guard acted to prevent the overthrow of the Assembly. The stage

was however set for a continuance of a serious confrontation between French conservatism

and Parisian radicalism.

The german revolution 1848

Early in 1848 several outbreaks of revolution had caused the French King Louis Phillippe to

abdicate (25th February) and Metternich, the chief minister of the Habsburg Monarchy and

architect of a system of restored monarchical government in Europe since before the fall of

Napoleon (1815), had been driven into exile.

In these times in the diverse states of Germany several rulers were faced with respectful, yet

determined, demands for change and, starting with Baden in early March, moved to award

Constitutions or to allow liberalisation of existing Constitutions. Prussia was then ruled byKing Frederick William IV who was anti-liberal and had famously said at the opening of an

'United Diet' of his territories in 1847, the first advisory assembly that any Prussian monarch

had been prepared to recognise, that:-

"Never will I permit a written sheet of paper to come between our God in heaven and this

land ... to rule us with its paragraphs and supplant the old, sacred loyalty."

After an incident precipitated street fighting the King withdrew his soldiers rather than see

even more fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently called upon by the

populace on the 19th

to stand bareheaded whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed

in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed. The King formalised a changein political direction through the appointment of a new ministry and proclamation issued on

the morning of the 20th

announced that the King had placed himself at the head of the German

nation and would appear that day in his capital wearing "old German" colours.

These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" in being

associated with contemporary German Liberalism and Nationalism having been adopted by

"patriotic" Germany in the days of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon but were also

thought of as being associated with the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,"

(which had been discontinued as a result of a dramatic reorganisation of the Germanies that

had been sponsored by Napoleon at thre height of his power).

During his progess through the streets of Berlin the King was occasionally hailed as

Emperor but he felt moved to assert that he intended to rob no German prince of his

sovereignty.

A manifesto was issued towards evening which sought to sum up up the position being

adopted:-

"Germany is in ferment within, and exposed from without to danger from more than one side.

Deliverance from this danger can come only from the most intimate union of the German

princes and people under a single leadership. I have taken this leadership upon me for the


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hour of peril. I have today assumed the old German colours, and placed myself under the

venerable banner of the German Empire. Prussia henceforth is merged in Germany."

In the unsettled and challenging times invitations sent out by a self-appointed group of

liberals based in Heidelberg led to the convening, in Frankfurt on the 30th

March, of a

preparatory parliament ( Vorparlament ). At the time of this meeting, although aspirations forvarious forms of political change were being widely voiced, all the traditional states of the

German Confederation were still actually in being!!! At the close of five days in session, the

Vorparlament recognised a fifty member committee as being responsible for the organisation

of processes of election to a German National Assembly which was projected to convene in

Frankfurt in May.

It had also pronounced on Polish affairs thus :- "The German Union proclaims the partition

of Poland to be a shameful injustice, and considers it the sacred duty of the German peoples to

do their utmost to achieve her reconstitution".

During these times the Federal Diet of the German Confederation was debating processes ofelection towards reaching decisions about the future of the Germanies but, in the event, it

decided that it was not to be the authority behind such decisions and effectively endorsed the

elective programme of the Vorparlament on the 7th April thus consigning itself to a position

of political obscurity.

The Vorparlament presumed that representatives should be sought from across the Germanic

Confederation and also from non-Confederal territories dear to German sentiment such as

East and West Prussia, Bohemia, and Schleiswig. Whilst some presumptions relating to

territorial representation were inevitable they could not but involve complications - the

Austrian Empire was the most powerful of the states historically involved in the Germanic

Confederation but also exercised sovereignty over immense territories that were outside the

Confederation - the Danish king was the sovereign duke of Schleiswig and of Holstein.

Ancient treaties deemed Holstein ( a confederal territory ) to be inseperable from Schleiswig.

The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was a longstanding member of the Confederation - it was

also non-German speaking and its Grand Duke was simultaneously King of the Netherlands.

The Czechs preferred that their homelands of Bohemia and Moravia should continue as

provinces within the Austrian Empire rather than be brought in a close association with a

German state.

In a letter of 11th April in response to an invitation by the Vorparlament to involve himself

in proceedings as the representative for Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the eminent historianPalack, who was a nationalistic Czech, declared:

" The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of

inviting me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned 'mainly with the

speediest summoning of a German Parliament' has just been duly delivered to me by the post.

With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's

most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the

assembly of 'friends of the German Fatherland', you yourselves acquit me of the charge which

is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the German

people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice of this


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excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with open

confidence, freely and without reservation.

Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by despatching another 'reliable

patriot'. Allow me to expound the reasons for this to you as briefly as possible.

The explicit purpose of your assembly is to put a German people's association [Volksbund] in

the place of the existing federation of princes, to bring the German nation to real unity, to

strengthen German national feeling, and thus to raise Germany's power both internal and

external. However much I respect this endeavour and the feeling on which it is based, and

particularly because I respect it, I cannot participate in it. I am not a German at any rate Ido not consider myself as such and surely you have not wished to invite me as a mere yes-

man without opinion or will...."

Palacky's letter was written against a social background where there had been a Czech

cultural revival over several decades previously where persons who could think of themselves

as being Czech were encouraged to take an interest in, and to feel pride about, Czech historyand literature. This revival had, in fact, been encouraged by Habsburg imperial administrators.

Arrangements were made for the convening in Prague in June of a Congress of the Slavs

living within the lands of the Habsburgs . Palacky emerged as a leading influence in this

Slavic Congress and effectively championed an Austroslavism where the preservation of the

Austrian Empire as a buffer against both German and Russian expansionism was seen as

being essential to the best interests of the Slavs. Slavic national development within a

federalized, and protective, Austrian empire being hoped for.

In the event whilst elections to the Frankfurt Assembly went ahead in those parts of Bohemia

mainly peopled by Germans participation was not forthcoming in predominantly Czech areas.

Some time after May 18th when the German National Assembly held its first meetings in the

Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt-am-Main the Confederal Diet formally dissolved

itself. Although the traditional states of the German Confederation continued to exist - with

their own local forms of princely or ecclesiatical state government as perhaps recently

modified by the recent upsurge in political and constitutional aspiration - at the end of May

the Frankfurt Parliament declared that the Constitution it was in the process of framing would

be sovereign over all the governments of the former German Confederation. The Frankfurt

Parliament further maintained that any legislation passed by princely or ecclesiatical state

governments would only be valid if consistent with the new constitution which would bebased 'on the will and election of the German people, to found the unity and political liberty

of Germany'.

Like the French in 1789, and indeed the Americans and British in earlier times of crisis and

change, the Frankfurt Parliament now also gave a very great deal of its attention to questions

of basic law in relation to citizenship endeavouring to frame a "Declaration of the

Fundamental Rights of the German People."

Liberals in Western Europe had long deplored the condition of Poland being maintained

principally under the repressive sovereignty of the Tsar but also, in the case of the Grand

Duchy of Posen, under the rather more liberal sovereignty of the Prussian King.


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Those assembled at Frankfurt had, in the heady days of early April, declared support for the

restitution of a Polish state as being "an Holy Duty of the German Nation." A political

amnesty of March 20 following on from Frederick William's capitulation to populist feeling

in Berlin included provisions which brought about the release of Polish revolutionists from

imprisonment at Moabit. A triumphant procession composed of carriages pulled by

enthusiastic Berliners conveyed the Polish revolutionist Mieroslawski and his followers fromthe prison to the palace. During the journey Mieroslawski proclaimed that Poles and Germans

were brothers and waved a black, red, and gold banner in support of the changed situation in

Prussia. .

In April there some unrest in which the Poles of Posen, in favour of concessions favourable

to a restored Polish nationality, were in opposition to Germans domiciled there. The Tsar of

Russia was known to be completely opposed to any reorganisation of his Kingdom of Poland.

By July the German minority in Posen were seeking its incorporation into the German

confederation. In the Frankfurt Parliament Wilhelm Jordan, a left-wing delegate from Prussia,

told the assembly that:-

"It is high time that we awaken from the romantic self-renunciation which makes us admire

all sorts of other nationalities whilst we ourselves languished in shameful bondage, trampled

on by all the world; it is high time that we awaken to a healthy national egoism which, to put

it frankly, places the welfare and honour of the fatherland above everything else..."

In these times the Frankfurt Parliament voted by 342 votes to 31 ( with 75 abstentions ) to

support a partition of the Grand Duchy of Posen. The motion voted on countenanced the full

participation of those areas of Posen peopled by Germans in the workings of the Frankfurt

Assembly. This inclusion of representatives was supported despite Posen being outside the

historic frontiers of the Germanic Confederation. Representatives were also recognised from

Schleiswig, another non-Confederal territory.

The Frankfurt Parliament also resolved that those who had been returned from (mainly

Germanic parts of) Bohemia should be regarded as fully representing Bohemia. Some

European Powers began to be increasingly alarmed by such potential inclusions of widespread

areas peopled by Germans in a future Germanic polity.

Italy revolution 1848

In the Italian peninsula there were far-reaching developments based to some extent on

aspirations which had been definitely stirring since shortly after the time of the election in

June 1846, as Pope Pius IX, of a Cardinal who followed policies which led to his being

perceived as holding liberal views. Prior to his demise in 1846 the previous Pope, Gregory

XVI, backed by a sure reliance on Prince Metternich's Austria for support, had been

responsible for establishing a pervasively repressive administration where spies and informers

could ensure that liberals, nationalists, and intellectuals, were often harassed and routinely

subjected to punishments that were not actually within the laws. The more radical amongst the

population of the States of the Church, and indeed the Italian Peninsula in general, for their

part tending to be involved in secret political or revolutionary societies such as the Carbonari.


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By the authority of the incoming Pope there was a declaration, on July 17th 1846, of an

amnesty. Amnesties, as such, were usually declared after Papal elections, (and indeed were

traditional in association with changes of sovereign in several European states), but this

amnesty was unusual in being extended to many sentenced for political crimes. As a result

some two thousand persons convicted of offences deemed political were, after promising

good behaviour, released from imprisonment or allowed to return from foreign exile. ThePapal States, recently remarkable for political repression, now saw a degree of political

freedom and a relaxation of previously strict censorship.

Opinion amongst the informed public in the Italian peninsula had been stirred by several

aspirational publications and notably so by one written by Vincenzo Gioberti entitled "On the

Civil and Moral Primacy of the Italians". This work considered the past greatness ofItalia and

her present virtues, deemed that Italians were capable of resuming leadership of the civilised

world, and looked to Sardinia-Piedmont and its army to stand up to the Austrian Empire. Pope

Pius IX was familiar with the content of this publication that looked to the formation of a

league of Italian rulers under the Papacy.

The incoming Pope had in fact brought copies of several such works to the Conclave of

Cardinals at which he himself was somewhat unexpectedly elected Pope with the view of

keenly recommending them to whosoever was returned to the Papal dignity.

During his first few months in office Pope Pius followed progressive policies such as the

promotion of railways, of gas-lighting, of an Agricultural Institute, and of some form of lay

consultation in the administration of the States of the Church, all of which lent credibility, in

many people's eyes, to such a role for his papacy.

Other rulers in the Italian peninsula were affected by the changed times - in the city of Turin

in Piedmont, from where Charles Albert King of Sardinia, ruled in Piedmont, Genoa, Sardinia,

Nice and Savoy, there was an extension of press freedoms. Amongst the persons who

involved themselves in press activity was a Count Camillo di Cavour, who had ownership

links with a liberal leaning newspaper called Il Risorgimento (Resurrection) which demanded

a Constitution, supported industrial development, and encouraged the speaking of "Tuscan"

Italian rather than French or any of the many regional dialects then in everyday use in the

Italian peninsula.

On July 17th 1847, (the first anniversary of the papal amnesty), Field Marshal Radetzky, the

Austrian commander in Lombardy, decided to very publicly reinforce the Austrian garrison in

Ferrara, a town within the territories of the church. Although an Austrian garrison was presentin the Citadel of Ferrara in line with the provisions of the treaties framed at the close of the

Napoleonic Wars the public nature and the timing of this process of reinforcement was seen

as provocative by Italian opinion. After the Austrians moved to secure several strategic points

outside the Citadel "to protect their men from insult" Pope Pius personally protested to the

European powers.

This protest was welcomed and supported by many in the Italian Peninsula.

In January 1848 there were 61 fatalities during so-called "tobacco riots" in Milan as people

demonstrated against taxes imposed by Lombardy's Austrian Authorities.


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On 12th January there was a rising in Palermo on the island of Sicily, then a notably

populous city, and a principal seaport, against the absolutist King Ferdinand, with outcomes

including a Sicilian declaration of independence and the awardance, by King Ferdinand, of a

Constitution to his realms on the 29th of January. This was rejected by Sicily, as there was a

powerful local movement supportive of an actual independence, but came into force in Naples.

On the 17th of February Grand Duke Leopold II awarded a Constitution to Tuscany. On

March 4th Charles Albert of Sardinia-Piedmont issued a conservative constitutional document

known as the Statuto which envisaged one of the two proposed legislative chambers being

elected by persons who had an adequate level of literacy and also paid a certain amount in

taxes.

Whilst Pope Pius himself seemed to hope to somehow reconcile the Church and Liberalism

without diminishing the Church's authority, the people increasing sought to gain the Church's

support for democratic reforms and for Italian nationalism. On 14th March the States of the

Church centred on Rome were awarded a Constitution, known as the Fundamental Statute,

which had been drawn up by a commission of Cardinals. This constitution allowed for someparticipation of elected deputies in legislation. There were to be restrictions on voting rights.

The Ministry of the States of the Church, previously exclusively clerical, now featured many

lay persons.

After mid-March there was unrest over five days in Milan that led to the Austrian forces in

Lombardy being withdrawn from that city towards the Alps to base themselves upon a

formidable group of fortresses known as the Quadrilateral. In these times unrest in Parma and

Modena caused their princely rulers to depart whilst a Venetian Republic was reborn under

the leadership of a lawyer named Daniel Manin.

On 23rd March Charles Albert, significantly motivated by the hope of acquisitions of

territory to extend his realms, but also to some considerable extent fearing domestic unrest

centred upon the traditionally radical seaport of Genoa that might have entailed a challenge to

his continued rule if he did not join in with the challenge to Austrian influence, authorised the

movement of his forces into Lombardy. Other armed contingents which it seemed might be

used against the Austrian interest marched north from Naples, from Tuscany, and from Rome.

On 29th April, however, Pope Pius in an Allocution addressed to the College of Cardinals

expressed a policy that inherently compromised the role in which he had been cast by many as

the potential figurehead of Italian nationalism.

" ...Seeing that some at present desire that We too, along with the other princes of Italy and

their subjects, should engage in war against the Austrians, We have thought it convenient to

proclaim clearly and openly, in this our solemn Assembly, that such a measure is altogether

alien from our counsels ...."

Many persons who had welcomed the Papacy's apparent support for Italian national

aspirations were disappointed by this speech of Pope Pius. But, from a broader perspective, by

adopting a non-partisan position Pope Pius avoided - (as Benedetto Croce has pointed out) -

being "marked with the stamp of nationality and thus being deprived of a universal character

as head of the Catholic Church above all national states."


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It happened that the forces of King Ferdinand of Naples, on 25th May, accomplished a

counter revolution which returned Naples to his absolutist rule. This decisive move was

precipitated by an attempted forceful overthrow of royal power in Naples. The Constitution

awarded some weeks earlier was withdrawn and the local assembly suspended.

The Neapolitan forces that had been sent north against Austria, during the more radical phase

of recent developments, were now recalled.

The Dynasties recover power

The projected Pan-Slav Congress convened, as arranged, in Prague in early June. The

proceedings of this Congress were sub-divided into a section involving Poles and Ruthenes,

one involving Czechs and Slovaks, and one involving Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. This Pan

Slav Congress functioned as a more or less conscious counter-blast to the German National

Assembly stressing support for the equality of nations and the continuation of several Slav

peoples existence within the Austrian Empire - its outlook was in favour of Slavic Revival

and of resistance to Germanization.

On 12th June there was some rioting in Prague that was followed by the active deployment

of the forces under the command of the local Austrian commander, General Windischgrtz,

whose wife had been fatally wounded in the disturbances, and a revival of Austrian

administrative control after five days of conflict. In many cases moderate persons, seeing the

behaviour of those involved in rioting in Prague as being excessive or alarmingly socialistic,

tended away from support for unpredictable change and toward support for traditional

authority.

Reaction was furthered by other, inherently tragic, developments that took place in France

in late June. The French National Assembly elections of April 23rd had been based onuniversal suffrage and had produced a conservative outcome where the small number of

deputies in favour of Republicanism and Socialism were heavily outnumbered. Those

promises made in February that the government would arrange work schemes had resulted in

the organisation of "National Workshops" which proved to be very expensive at a time when

the new administration found it difficult to raise loans and considered it most imprudent to

raise taxes sufficiently to actually fund the considerable expense in continuing the project. In

many cases those in employment in Paris felt able to agitate for higher wages from their

existing employers in the belief that they could fall back upon the public purse. Persons from

outside Paris migrated to take advantage of the new provisions. In late May the authorities,

with perhaps one hundred and twenty thousand persons enrolled in the work schemes, began

to place restrictions on them. On 22nd June the assembly moved to close down the workschemes. People were in cases offered such deeply unattractive alternatives as joining the

French army, participating in the draining of provincial swamplands, or emigration to colonial

north Africa. On 23rd June barricades were set up in Paris and the authorities ordered the

army to intervene.

Thousands of fatalities occurred during subsequent street fighting, with thousands more

being sent into exile or being given terms of imprisonment. After these "June Days" Socialism

was subjected to repression and press freedoms were curtailed.

The Minister of War, General Cavignac, had played a prominent role in the "June Days"

where socialism was suppressed and was invited by the assembly to continue with theexercise of sweeping powers until a new constitution was in place. Over the ensuing months


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however General Cavignac showed limited capacity for government and for the winning of

political support. In the event people increasingly began to be attracted by the personality and

policies of one Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the former Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who

had long lived in exile but had been given approval to return to France in June 1848 and who

had actually been elected to the Assembly. French public opinion, long supportive of

extensions of French political, cultural, and military, influence had recently been moved bythe works of Thiers and others about the Napoleonic era.

Louis Napoleon stood for election as President of the Republic - an office which, under the

constitution of the republic, was to continue over a four year term. In this campaign Louis

Napoleon espoused policies that offered strong support for order, for the rights of private

property, and for the maintenance of the republic. His close family association with Napoleon

Bonaparte also seemed to offer the promise of a more dynamic policy at home and abroad. At

the election in September 1848 Louis Napoleon was returned with some five-and-a-half

million votes out of the seven-and-a-half million cast. The now somewhat discredited General

Cavignac being the closest runner up in the presidential campaign.

Although the assemblies of Lombardy, and of Venetia, had voted for annexation to the

Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont this was not put into effect as the Austrian commander

Radetzky exceeded his official orders by leading his now reinforced armies based in the

Quadrilateral against the Sardinian-Piedmontese led interest and won a decisive victory at

Custozza on July 23rd.

In April 1848 Prussia, Brunswick, and Hanover, had sent forces into Holstein after being

asked to intervene by those assembled at Frankfurt at a time of a succession crisis, following

on from the repudiation of the incoming Danish Kings personal Sovereignty as Duke, by the

Estates of Holstein and Schleswig. In early May Prussian forces penetrated into the Danish

province of Jutland. The Tsar of all the Russia's had let it be known that he disapproved of

these actions by Prussia, meanwhile, the British were pressing for the agreement of a peace.

As a result of these international complications, and also of the seriously adverse effects of a

Danish blockade on Prussian commerce, the Prussian Kingdom entered on 28th August into a

so-called Malmo Armistice with Denmark without prior consultation with the German

National Assembly. The Assembly initially condemned this armistice but, on the 16th

September, narrowly endorsed it after a three-day debate. Austrian, Prussian, and Hessian,

forces were called upon to defend the Assembly's proceedings against those protesting this

acceptance of an armistice so deeply unwelcome to German national sentiment.

The Magyars tended to see themselves as the natural "people of state" and the Magyar

tongue as the natural "language of state" in their hoped for restored and constitutional

kingdom of Hungary. Although Kossuth, in sponsoring Hungarian constitutional autonomy in

March 1848, had pronounced that "Our task is to found a happier future on the brotherhood

of all the Austrian races" it happened that the Magyar dominated Hungarian Diet sought to

effectively impose the Magyar tongue, as the language of state, on the several Slav

nationalities that had been living under the political control of the Hungarian Diet.


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The Magyars were not the first people to endeavour to create a 'progressive' state for

themselves.

Turbulent times can often give scope for the adoption of sweeping policiies. If we look at

revolutionary France in the years after 1789 we see that policies were adopted by the French

Revolutionaries which featured such things as the abandonment of the long established"feudal" territories of France, (e. g. Maine, Anjou, Gascony), with their being replaced, after

December 1789, by eighty-three new administrative Departements whose names were derived

from geographical features.

The "Christian" calendar was repudiated with a new one being adopted based on the current

reality of the, "French Revolutionary New Dawn," giving humanity its new base year,

(September 22, 1792 was redefined to be the first day of Year I of the Republic), along with

new months and new weekdays.

A rationalisation of weights and measures across France led to the adoption of a system

where, after August 1 1793, weights were measured in Kilograms, volumes were measured inLitres, and distances were measured in Metres.

The France of 1789, with an overall population of some twenty-eight million persons, was

the most populous state in western Europe by a wide margin. Territorially France was a result

of a centuries long consolidation of provinces that had been brought under French royal

sovereignty through dynastic marriages, dynastic inheritances, dynastic wars and other

conflicts.

Such processes had resulted in a high degree of regional linguistic diversity. The

Revolutionary upheavals after 1789 occured in a French domestic situation where perhaps a

million persons spoke Breton in their everyday lives, another million spoke German, an

hundred thousand spoke Basque, there were another hundred thousand Catalan speakers,

whilst Provence, in the south east, was the home of many historic dialects. Flemish and Italian

were also spoken in certain border regions.

In fact, only a sixth of the newly relevant 'Departments', all of which were located around

Paris, were exclusively French speaking.

Ardent French Republicanism was largely an urban phenomenon. Its keenest supporters

called each other "Citizen", demanded that "Careers be open to Talent" in a state supportive of

"Liberty, Egality, and Fraternity."

The Kings of France had been prepared to exercise sovereignty over a feudally structured

and linguistically diverse realm. The would-be architects of the Republic 'One and

Indivisible" increasingly associated the concepts of "language" and "nation" and, as they

conceptually struggled with issues of "unity" and "nationhood," it become evident that the

forms of "unity" and "nationhood" they had in mind were difficult to promote against this

background of diversity and regionalism.

A Republican Decree under Robespierre, the Decree of Thermidor 2 (July 20, 1794),

provided that henceforth all contracts had to be written in French. By its terms any civil

servant or public officer, or any government official who, in the performance of their duties,drew up, wrote or subscribed, official reports, judgements, contracts or other generally


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unspecified documents in idioms or languages other than French could be condemned to six

months imprisonment.

One of the moving spirits behind its adoption, the Abbe Gregoire, had presented a report

entitled "Why and How the Patois Must be Destroyed and French Made Universal" to the

National Convention on 16 Prairal Year II (4 June 1794). This report suggested that standardFrench was the mother tongue of only 15% of the population and maintained that the patois

(Occitan, Provenal and all non-standard forms of French), together with Breton and Basque,

represent the barbarism of centuries past and need to be obliterated and replaced by standard

French. Gregoires report called for the single and invariable use of "the language of freedom"

in a "Republic one and indivisible".

As early as 8 Pluvise Year II (January 27, 1794). Bertrand Barre (a member of the

revolutionary Committee of Public Safety) had stated: Federalism and superstition speak

Breton, emigration and hatred of the Republic speak German, counter- revolution speaks

Italian and fanaticism speaks Basque. Let us break these instruments of injury and error. The

language of a free people must be one and the same for all.

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838), one of the political great men of the time,

proposed that there should be a primary school in each municipality such that "The language

of the Constitution and the laws will be taught there to all; and this crowd of corrupted

dialects, the last remains of feudality, will be forced to disappear; the new order of things

demands it".

A lite version of Latin had traditionally been the political language of the Hungarian Kingdom

- this was broadly acceptable in cultural and historic terms to most of the ethnic groups

domiciled in that kingdom. Magyar, on the other hand, was regarded as an extremely difficult

language quite different to the Indo-European tongues of Europe.

Kossuth, and Magyar nationalism, also tended to see Transylvania and Croatia, southern and

eastern territories recently included in a declaration defining the "lands of the Crown of St.

Stephen" although they were not actually within the historic kingdom of Hungary, as being

self-evidently subject to the governmental power to be exercised by the Hungarian Diet.

The year was 1848 and perhaps Europe as a whole at that time had yet to experiencewidespread instances of historic communities making pressing claims for linguistic and

cultural autonomy. One Croat representative to the Diet rose in protest and said that "You

Magyars are an island in an ocean of Slavism. Take heed that its waves do not rise and

overwhelm you."

This representative, Ljudevit Gaj, was perhaps the leading figure in the Illyrian movement.

Like many romantic nationalists in these times, and later, across Europe and Scandinavia he

was not native to the (in this case "Illyrian") nationality that was being championed. Gaj was

the son of a German father and a Slovak mother and was born just north of the ancient Croat

capital, Zagreb, in 1814 and developed an intense interest in Croatian history as he grew up.

The land Gaj sought to identify with, "Illyria" or "Croatia", had long been under the sway ofexternal powers and foreign cultural influences to the extent that little remained of what was


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thought of as Croat identity. Gaj had gained a certain celebrity in those parts where people

could think of themselves as being "Croats" as a would-be champion of an awakening of a

cultural patriotism that hoped to see a recovery of the Croat "Illyrian" language, and a

renaissance of Croat culture.

In these "patriotic" times, under the tutelage of Gaj and others, the upper classes weresomewhat prepared to abandon their usage of Italian and the broader populations were also

prepared to adapt themselves towards the regional dialect that was spoken in the city of

Dubrovnik.

This preference for the dialect of Dubrovnik had locally well understood historical and

cultural significance in terms of the restitution of a Croat nationality due to Dubrovnik having

been something of a bastion against Turkish and Italian domination but it also made possible

some interaction, (intended to forstall Magyar cultural domination!), with the Serbs as their

own linguistic movement and associated romanticised recovery of Serb nationality, had

focussed on a related dialect although, in their respective linguistic and cultural revivals the

Orthodox Christian Serbs had adopted a Cyrillic alphabet whilst the Roman Catholic Croatsused a Latin alphabet.

Jellachic, formerly a colonel of a Croatian regiment in the Habsburg service and more

recently (March 1848) Governor or Ban of Croatia (and a close friend of Ljudevit Gaj!), soon

thereafter expelled Magyar officials from Croatia, in May forbade correspondence with the

Hungarian government, and in June moved to restore the Croatian Diet at Agram. Under

Hungarian diplomatic lobbying most of these measures by Jellachic were successively

officially condemned by the Emperor even to the point of suspending Jellachic from office.

After being summoned to an interview with the Emperor at Innsbruck Jellachic gave fulsome

assurances of loyalty to the Habsburg state system and published an address to the numerous

Croat soldiers based under Radetzky's overall command in Lombardy to continue in the

Habsburg service and "not to be diverted from their duty to the Emperor in the field by any

report of danger to their rights and to the nationality nearer home." This manifesto won him

the support of many important persons in the higher reaches of the Austrian military and court.

Radetzky's victory at Custozza contributed to a resurgence in the fortunes of the Habsburg

system. Given this resurgence the Emperor felt able to return to Vienna. In early September

Jellachic was restored to office by the Emperor as Ban of Croatia and soon thereafter led a

force against the Hungarian interest. The Hungarian Parliament was declared abolished by the

Emperor on the 3rd of October, on 6th arrangements for the sending of Austrian Germanregiments to the aid of Jellachic were followed by a revolt in Vienna aimed at impeding this

deployment. Should Jellachic and the Austrian regiments suppress the Hungarian seperatism

this would tend to also diminish the possibility of securing the formation of an administration

that would be less under the sway of the dynasty and more responsive to the wishes for

constitutional freedom of the Empires's "Peoples of State" or "Master Nations." This Viennese

revolt was forcibly contained by soldiers under the command of General Windischgrtz.

Such nationalities as the Serbs, the Slovaks, and the Rumanians also tended to operate against

the establishment of a definite Hungarian political power - not so much to restore the

Habsburg system as to inhibit the unwelcome threat of Magyarisation. Such opposition

amongst the nationalities to the establishment of Hungarian power was itself to some limited

extent dependent on pre-existing patterns of confessional adherence. More important perhaps


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were traditions of political / cultural alliance with, or political / cultural opposition to, the

Magyars.

In November King Freidrich Wilhelm ordered the dispersal of the Prussian Assembly.

Prussian forces intervened in other German states to restore princely rule.

On 27th November the Austrian minister Schwarzenberg insisted that the Austrian Empire

must be preserved intact. In early December Schwarzenberg arranged the abdication of the

incapable Emperor Ferdinand, who had been tarnished by his concessions, in favour of an

eighteen year old nephew the Archduke Francis. At the time of his accession Francis added

Joseph to his name as Emperor in the hope of associating his rule with that of an earlier

Emperor whose reforms were kindly remembered by many. The Hungarians were unwilling

to consent to Francis Joseph being invested with the Crown of St. Stephen. The struggle to

subdue Hungary proving difficult the Austrian authority sought the involvement of the Tsar

and invited active Russian assistance "in the holy struggle against anarchy."

The Tsar of all the Russias was in principle supportive of divine-right dynastic governanceand had also become somewhat concerned lest the Hungarian developments be copied in his

Polish Kingdom, he had already, and seriously, offered to assist in returning the Kingdom of

Hungary to its earlier political position within the 'lands of the Habsburgs' and now sent some

three hundred and sixty thousand of his soldiers to co-operate with Austrian forces in efforts

to subdue Hungary.

By late June, with Hungarian nationalism being hard pressed by Austrian, Russian, and local

nationality opposition Kossuth made some concessions to the nationalities within the

Hungarian kingdom allowing them to use their own languages in schools and law courts. This

attempt to win support from these nationalities proved to be, however, a case of too little and

too late.

On 4th March Francis Joseph had issued, by decree, a new centralising Imperial Constitution

devised by his own ministers and moved to dissolve the Austrian Constituent Assembly. On

9th March Schwarzenberg threw his support behind a possible resolution to the question of

the extent of the new German State by suggesting that the entire Austrian Empire should join

with the Germanic Confederation in "an Empire of Seventy Millions". Schwarzenberg further

suggested that the leadership of this Grossdeutschland(Greater Germany) with further, non-

germanic, Habsburg ruled, territorial additions would alternate between Austria and Prussia.

Those present as representatives in the Frankfurt Parliament had another option to consider inthe form ofKleindeutschlandthis Lesser Germany being formed without the adherence any of

the Hapsburg lands.

Austria was the traditionally the "leading power" in the German confederation, but of its

thirty-six million inhabitants less than six million were German. Prussia was traditionally the

"second power" in the German confederation, and of its sixteen million population some

fourteen million were German.

After further debate, however, the Frankfurt Assembly responded to the ongoing

constitutional stalemate by approving, on 28 March with some two-fifths of the

representatives abstaining, a more national-German Kleindeutsch outcome and offering thethrone as hereditary "Emperor of the Germans" to the King of Prussia.


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A thirty-two man delegation subsequently journeyed to Berlin to seek the consent of the

King of Prussia. In the event King Freidrich Wilhelm, in polite diplomatic, terms told the

delegation that he felt honored but could accept the crown only with the consent of his peers,

the other sovereign monarchs. He nevertheless gave some consideration to the offer, over

several weeks, before finally declining to become "Emperor of the Germans".

King Freidrich Wilhelm was less polite about these developments in a letter to a relative in

England in which he related that he felt deeply insulted by being offered "from the gutter" a

crown, "disgraced by the stink of revolution, baked of dirt and mud."

It appears that King Freidrich Wilhelm alongside his own romantic notions about kingship,

(he had described Constitutions as "pieces of paper that stand between God, who appoints

kings and rulers, and the people"), also thought of the House of Habsburg as being the

naturally leading dynasty in the Germanies and as such was unwilling to attempt to challenge

its leading role by accepting the Imperial title. In practical terms the Habsburg dynasty would

have found such an acceptance to be intolerable and would probably have sought to undo itthrough diplomatic and possible also military endeavours.

In the wake of Friedrich Wilhelm's decision not to accept the proferred Imperial crown

Prussian delegates were ordered to withdraw from the German National Assembly, other

states also withdrew their representatives. In the circumstances what was left of the credibility

of the Assembly largely evaporated - the Frankfurt Assembly was discontinued in May with a

rump ineffectively reconvening at Stuttgart.

After the recovery of reaction in the Germanies the Constitutions of many German states

were rendered less liberal or suspended altogether.

On 15th November 1848 Rossi, the Prime Minister of the States of the Church who seemed

to be on the point of acting to repress reform, was attacked and fatally injured. Later that

month Pope Pius left a turbulent Rome and relocated at Gaeta in the Kingdom of Naples. The

formation of a Constituent Assembly to be elected by universal suffrage was set in train

shortly thereafter. On 5th February the Constituent Assembly held its first session and four

days later issued a Declaration which repudiated the Temporal Power of the Church and

proclaimed a Roman Republic:-

Article 1. The temporal government of the papacy is now at an end, in fact and in law.

Article 2. The Roman pontiff will have every guarantee needed for the independent exercise

of his spiritual power.

Article 3. The form of government at Rome shall be that of a pure democracy, and it will take

the glorious name of the Roman Republic

Article 4. The Roman Republic will enter into such relations with the rest of Italy as our

common nationality demands.


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On February 18th Pope Pius, believing this Declaration of a Roman Republic to be an

intolerable revolutionary overthrow of what was not only an historically valid polity but

which was also, and more importantly, the divinely ordained seat of the Papacy, called upon

France, Austria, Naples and Spain to restore the States of the Church to Papal Sovereignty.

In March at Novara the Austrians won an important victory over the forces led by Sardinia-Piedmont prompting King Charles Albert to abdicate. He was succeeded by a son, Victor

Emmanuel who, in a personal interview with the Austrian commander Radetzky won his

agreement to the continuance of the Sardinian Statuto constitutional arrangements as this

continuance would be likely to better reconcile potentially turbulent Piedmontese radicals to

the post-conflict situation.

Austrian intervention secured the restoration of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to his throne - it

now seemed that Rome would similarly be returned to Papal authority before many weeks had

passed.

The Sicilian Parliament had pronounced Ferdinand, the Boubon dysnast who ruled fromNaples, to be deposed and had offered the throne to a younger brother of Victor Emmanuel.

King Ferdinand responded by despatching a naval fleet which proceeded to bombard Messina

over five days. Negotiations were entered into but agreement proved elusive. In the event

Sicily was invested with King Ferdinand's soldiers such that the capital, Palermo, was

captured on May 15.

The government of Louis Napoleon in France preferred that Austrian arms should not

themselves achieve the restoration of the Papal power in Rome as this could lead to the re-

establishment of an Austrian hegemony in the peninsula that could well be harmful to the

perceived interests of France. Louis Napoleon also hoped to gain favour with powerful

Roman Catholic interests in France through a French intervention intended to win Rome backto the sovereignty of the papacy

Some ten thousand soldiers were duly sent from the French Republic with the minority

republican element in the French assembly being assured of the good intentions of the

assembly towards the Roman population and of a desire to avert possible Austrian domination.

The large army sent by France landed on the coast near Rome on 25 April 1849 and was

directly responsible for the militarily contested overthrow of the Roman Republic in early

July 1849 despite a stout resistance led by several patriotric Italians including Mazzini and

Garibaldi. This French intervention, was styled for French domestic consumption as being a

necessary to overthrow unpopular "foreigners who had come from all parts of Italy."

On August 25 an Austrian army overthrew the independence of Venice where resistance had

been worn down by cholera and famine as well as by military siege and bombardment.

The Papal authority, as restored to Rome on July 14, soon showed itself, in defiance of the

wishes of France, as being interested in the re-imposition of a priestly absolutism. Pope Pius

IX did not personally return to Rome from Gaeta until the following year and when he did so

he returned with a head of hair that had become rapidly and prematurely grey due to the

stresses of the time. He thereafter followed notably conservative policies in theology and in

politics over the following two decades.


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The revolutions of 1848-9, this so-called "springtime of the peoples" which had once seemed

to sweep all before it, had revealed that there was a powerful groundswell of dissatisfaction

with traditional dynastic governance but where it was set aside this usually led to the

emergence of situations where deep rivalries centered on the forwarding of sectionally

"popular" socialistic and sectionally "popular" nationalist aspirations by some interested

groups that were deeply unwelcome to other interested groups. The resulting divisions andturmoils alienated many people from the course of the revolutions and facilitated the return of

local dynastic authority as a broadly acceptable champion of order over chaos.

Just as in the 1789-1815 era Russia again eventually intervened in support of the tradition of

throne and altar governance.

Although the tide of revolution was turned back in 1849 the events of 1848-1849 left several

direct legacies. There was profound reform of the lot of the peasantry over much of central

Europe as approved by the Austrian Constituent Assembly on 7th September 1848 (and as

retained by the restored Austrian administration).

This involved an elimination of the "robot" feudal services which the peasantry had

previously to render to local magnates. This led to far-reaching transformations in society

where agriculture became more commercial and less feudal and where many poorer peasants

were unable to survive economically due to falling prices. A consequent increase in migration

of (usually) Slav peasants to (often previously) Germanised urban areas sometimes tended to

contribute further to the establishment of conditions for continued "local clashes of culture

and language" between German and Slav over large tracts of the Austrian Empire.

There was also an imparting of impetus to nationalism in the Italian Peninsula and in "the

Germanies." Enduring change towards more inclusive representation or constitutional

government occurred in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.

Many consequences were to follow from Louis Napoleon's elevation to the French Presidency.

On October 31 1849, when he had been in Presidential office for almost a year, he sent a

message to the Assembly which effectively undermined the constitution of the republic. This

message sought to offer some justification as to why the former Brissot ministry had been

dismissed.

"France, in the midst of confusion, seeks for the hand, the will of him whom it elected on the

10th

of December. The victory won on that day was the victory of a system, for the name of

Napoleon is itself a programme. It signifies order, authority, religion, national prosperity

within; national dignity without. It is this policy, inaugurated by my election, that I desire to

carry to triumph with the support of the Assembly and of the people."

In late 1851 the Republican constitution was more completely overthrown:-

"The present situation cannot continue. Each day that passes increases the country's danger.

The Assembly, supposed to be the staunchest supporter of order, has become a hot-bed of

sedition. The patriotism of three hundred members was not enough to curb its fatal tendencies.Instead of legislation for the public good, it is forging weapons for civil war. It is making a


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bid for the power that I wield directly by virtue of the people's will. It fosters every wicked

passion. It is jeopardising the stability of France. I have dissoved the National Assembly and I

invite the whole people to adjudicate between me and it. "

Proclamation of Louis Napoleon of 2 December 1851

Under the previous constitutional arrangements Louis Napoleon would have had to leave

office in 1852 with there also being a law against the re-election of previous holders of the

presidential office. Louis Napoleon, who had run up very heavy personal debts, knew that his

political adversaries were waiting for an opportunity to move against him. The Proclamation

of 2 December was accompanied by the arrest of seventy-eight of such key political

opponents.

The French Republic was subsequently replaced by a form of Empire under Louis Napoleon

who was to hold power as Emperor Napoleon III. Napoleon I being Napoleon Bonaparte,

Napoleon II being a title imputed to the son of the politically arranged marriage betweenNapoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian Archduchess. This son, who had died of tuberculosis at

the age of twenty-one, had been raised under Metternich's overall supervision as a Austrian

aristrocrat.

The implication of this title being that "Napoleon III" sought to identify his empire with that

of Napoleon Bonaparte and intended to pursue somewhat Bonapartist policies at home and

abroad. Where the truly dynastic rulers of Europe respected the principle of dynastic

sovereignty and were also usually supportive of church influence on society such was not the

"Bonapartist outlook." In particular Napoleon III was somewhat prepared to take upon

himself the promotion of states based on what was called the so-called "national principle."

His uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte after defeat and in exile, had claimed to have been a champion

of this "principle" but an examination of Bonaparte's policies suggests that such support as he

offered to it was perhaps guided by considerations related to his own imperial framework and

the winning of allies amongst peoples whilst avoiding the alienation of mighty adversaries

such as the Tsar of Russia.

Napoleon III saw the promotion of national statehood as being a necessary response to the

existence of popular and national aspirations that might tend to overspill into turbulent

challenges to the then existing system. He also hoped that France might gain diplomatically

by being the sponsor of such states and thus winning friends and allies. The situation where

Napoleon III, as the ruler of one of the most inherently powerful states of western Europe,was prepared to undermine historic traditions of dynastic rule in order to facilitate the

emergence of states based moreso on ethnic nationhood was likely to bring with it a degree of

constitutional and political turmoil in Europe.

Napoleon III was also to some degree dismissive of the validity of the "Vienna Settlement"

of 1815, which had attempted to restore dynastic rule after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

(Something of the nature of the potential constitutional and political turmoil that might tend

to result from Napoleon III's adoption of such policies can be seen in a scenario, early in 1863,

where the Empress Eugenie the wife of Napoleon III, showed the Austrian ambassador a

projected "more rational" map of Europe. This proposed map envisioned dramatic andunprecedented changes to the sovereignty of several states.


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A Polish state was to be re-established - such re-establishment would be at the expense of

Prussia and Russia but Russia was to make compensatory gains in Asia Minor and Prussia in

North Germany. The emergent Italian kingdom [that had been formed in 1861] would gain

Venetia with the Austrian Empire being compensated with Silesia and some territories in the

Balkans. Greece would gain Constantinople [Istanbul] whilst the Ottoman Empire seemed to

disappear. France herself was to gain the left bank of the Rhine at the expense of Germanprinces who might hope for territorial compensation in South America.)

Given his political outlook it happened that Napoleon III decided to interact diplomatically,

and militarily, with dynastic ministers such as Cavour (prime minister to the House of Savoy)

and Bismarck (prime minister to the House of Hohenzollern), in ways which culminated in

the establishment of states - a Kingdom of Italy in 1861 (Cavour) and a second German

Empire in 1871 (Bismarck) - that were simultaneously both dynastic and moreso in

accordance with the "national principle". Powerful sections of the local populations in both

these situations tending to support the replacement of the former patchworks of traditional

dynastic states of the Italian peninsula and the German lands as a necessary route towards the

establishment of more powerful and more progressive states that were also associated withshared feelings of nationality.

Interestingly, in both of these cases Napoleon III got more than he bargained for in that the

Italian Kingdom and the German Empire that eventually emerged were both more territorially

extensive and more independent of French influence than he had anticipated.

Similarly Cavour and Bismarck also got more than they bargained for in that the

establishment of the Italian Kingdom and the German Empire were in practice associated with

a lessening of the full acceptance of the personal sovereignty of dynastic rulers and a greater

acceptance of popular national sovereignty.

* * *

In 1879 Edward Augustus Freeman, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University,

wrote:- A hundred years ago man's political likes and dislikes seldom went beyond the range

suggested by the place of his birth or immediate descent, Such birth or descent made him a

member of this or that political community, a subject of this or that prince, a citizen - perhaps

a subject - of this or that commonwealth. The political community of which he was a member

had its traditional alliances and traditional enemies, and by those traditional alliances and

traditional enemies the likes and dislikes of the members of that community were guided. But

those traditional alliances and enemies were seldom by theories about language or race. The

people of this or that place might be discontented under a foreign government; but, as a rule,they were discontented only if subjection to that foreign government brought with it personal

supression or at least political degradatiion. Regard or disregard of some purely local

priveledge or local feeling went for more than the fact of a government being native or

foreign. What we now call the sentiment of nationality did not go for much; what we call the

sentiment of race went for nothing at all. Only a few men here or there would have

understood the feelings which have led to the two great events of our time, the political

reunion of the German and Italian nations after their long political dissolution.

Between circa 1850 and 1870 several territorially ambitious Dynasties tried to exploit or "ride

the tiger" of populist nationalism. In the case of Count Camillo Cavour this facilitated a form


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of Italian unification. In the case of Count Otto von Bismarck this led to a form of German

unification.

* * *

F. Palacky - letter to Frankfurt Parliament Committee of Fifty April 1848

The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of

inviting me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned "mainly with the

speediest summoning of a German Parliament" has just been duly delivered to me by the post.

With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's

most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the

assembly of "friends of the German Fatherland", you yourselves acquit me of the charge

which is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the

German people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice

of this excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with openconfidence, freely and without reservation.

Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by despatching another "reliable

patriot". Allow me to expound the reasons f

The European Revolution of 1848

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