- Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Europe has been placed under the surveillance of the Holy Alliance (Prussia, Russia, Austria) aimed at preserving the Old Regime from revolutionary inclinations. Despite some uprisings in 1820 and 1830, the Europe of the Holy Alliance remained stable until 1848.
- But in 1846, it saw a great agricultural crisis, soon followed by a commercial and industrial crisis which affected all classes of society, and in particular the working classes in full impoverishment, and among whom social demands were awakened.
- Tension is rising between revolutionary groups and governments; and conflicts broke out in 1848, demonstrating European political interdependence.
1848
Characters
Louis Philippe d'Orleans
Klemens Wenzel von Metternich
Ferdinand I st
Frédéric-Guillaume IV
Charles Albert
Victor Emmanuel II
Procedure
The revolution started in Palermo on January 12, 1848 then reached France on February 22 and 24, Austria and Prussia in March and gradually other European absolutisms. These popular and labor movements, generally led by the bourgeois, all have liberal and nationalist demands.
In France, the revolutionary movement of February 22-24, 1848 put an end to the July Monarchy and proclaimed the Second Republic, spreading its optimism in Europe.
Italy, fragmented between Austria and several absolutist states, saw victorious revolutions grant constitutions to monarchs.
The Austrian revolutions cause the flight of the conservative Chancellor Metternich and wrest a constitution from the Emperor Ferdinand I st ; Hungary, for its part, separated from Austria and became a liberal state in April 1848.
In the Germanic confederation, revolutions seem to succeed quite easily; Frederick William IV grants freedoms to new liberal states that have developed pan-German sentiment (wanting to unify Germany).
But liberal fervor was soon crushed by the return of absolutism, and the People's Spring was a failure.
In March 1848 in Italy, the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, Charles Albert, wanted to launch a crusade against Austrian domination, but the consensus failed to be reached and following a condemnation from the Pope, the liberal movements collapsed, leading to the return of absolutism.
In Vienna and Hungary, no consensus manages to unite the governments:strong protest movements lead to the fall of the regimes.
In Germany, the unity movement comes up against many contradictions and fails to come to an agreement, provoking a return to militarism.
Faced with these wavering governments, the monarchs regain the upper hand.
Victor Emmanuel II reconquers Italy which returns to absolutism.
After bloody uprisings in the Austrian states and a harsh reconquest of Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph reunites the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it was before 1848, but grants a constitution all the same and, for the first time , equality of citizens.
In Germany, the new Frankfurt Parliament proved ineffective, leading to huge insurrectionary mobilizations. Having failed to create a Republic, Parliament called on Prussia for help and Frederick William IV reformed the Prussian Empire. The Frankfurt Parliament, dissolved, continued to stir up insurrectionary movements until they were definitively crushed by the Prussian army in May 1849.
Finally, in France, the Second Republic quickly gave way to the Second Empire.
Consequences
- More crushed than ever, the liberal demands that are flourishing all over Europe are not about to die out, despite the return of absolutism.
- But above all, the Spring of the Peoples allows the affirmation of the will of national unification, a claim that continues to be a hot topic.
- It will lead to the end of the territorial division of the Congress of Vienna to reform Europe along national borders.