Western Civilization II
Chapter
Twenty-One
“The
Conservative Order
and
the
Challenges
of Reform”
The Congress of Vienna
•
The Congress of Vienna met in 1814 and 1815 to
redraw the map of Europe after the Napoleonic era, and to provide some way of
preserving the future peace of Europe.
•
While Europe was spared a general war throughout
the remainder of the 19th century, the failure of the statesmen who
shaped the future in 1814-1815 to recognize the factors unleashed by the French
Revolution:
l
Nationalism and liberalism
l
Change or the maintaining of the status quo
The “Big Four”
•
The Vienna
settlement was the work of the representatives of the four nations that had
done the most to defeat Napoleon.
l
Prince Klemens
Von Metternich (Austria)
l
Epitomized
conservative reactionsim.
l
Lord Castlereagh
(England)
l
Principal
objective was to achieve a balance of power on the continent and surround
France with larger stronger states.
l
Karl Von
Hardenberg Karl Von Hardenberg (Prussia)
l
Goal was to
recover Prussian territory lost to Napoleon & gain additional territory in
northern Germany (Saxony).
l
Czar Alexander I
(Russia)
l
Advocated an
independent Poland under Russian control
Talleyrand
•
While Periogord Talleyrand, the French Foreign
Minister he was not initially included in the early deliberations
l
He became a mediator where the interests of
Prussia and Russia classed with those of England and Austria.
•
By such actions, Talleyrand brought France into
the ranks of the principal powers.
“The Dancing Congress”
•
The European gathering was held amid much
pageantry.
•
Parties, balls, and banquets reminded the
delegates what life had been like before 1789.
•
This was intended to generate favorable “public
opinion” and occupy the delegates since they had little to do of any serious
nature.
Principles of Settlement
•
The three main
principles discussed at the Congress of Vienna were:
l
Legitimacy
l
Returning to
power the ruling families deposed by more than two decades of revolutionary
warfare.
l
Dynasties restored
in Holland, Sardinia, Tuscany and Modena
l
Compensation
l
Territorially
rewarding those states which had made considerable sacrifices to defeat
Napoleon.
l
Balance of Power
l
Meant arranging
the map of Europe so that never again could one state upset the international
order and cause a general war.
l
Various adjustments
were made in the countries of Europe in order to surround France.
Enforcement of the Status Quo
•
Arrangements to guarantee the enforcement of the
status quo as defined by the Vienna settlement now included tow provisions:
l
The “Holy Alliance”
l An
unpractical attempt to unify Europe, only taken seriously by Alexander I of
Russia.
l
The “Quadruple Alliance”
l Russia,
Prussia, England and Austria provided for concerted action to arrest any threat
to the peace or balance of power.
l
England and Austria differed on their definition
of concerted action.
The Congress System
•
From 1815 to
1822, European international relations were controlled by the series of
meetings held by the great powers to monitor and defined the status quo:
l
The Congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle (1816)
l
The Congress of
Troppau (1820)
l
The Congress of
Laibach (1821)
l
The Congress of
Verona (1822)
•
The principle of
collective security required unanimity among members of the Quadruple Alliance.
•
The history of
the Congress System points to the ultimate failure of this key provision in
light of the serious challenges to the status quo after 1815.
Evaluation
•
The Congress of
Vienna has been criticized for ignoring the liberal and nationalist aspirations
of so many peoples.
•
Hindsight
suggests the statesmen at Vienna may have been more successful in stabilizing
the international system than we have been able to do in the 20th
century.
l
Not until the
unification of Germany in 1870-71, was the balance of power upset.
l
Not until World
War I in 1914, did Europe have another general war.
•
Hindsight tells
us however that the leading statesmen at Vienna underestimated the new
nationalism and liberalism generated by the French Revolution.
Conservatism,
Nationalism,
& Liberalism
Conservatism
•
Conservatism
arose in reaction to liberalism and became a poplar alternative for those who
were frightened by the violence, unleashed by the French Revolution.
•
Early
conservatism was allied to the restored monarchial governments of Austria,
Russia, France, and England.
•
Support for conservatism:
l
came from the
traditional ruling classes.
l
Also supported by
the peasants
l
A majority of the
population
•
Supported by
Romanticist writers, conservatives believed in order, society and the state,
faith and tradition.
Characteristics of Conservatism
•
Conservatives
viewed history as a continuum which no single generation can revoke.
•
Conservative
Beliefs:
l
The basis of
society is organic, not contractual
l
Stability and
longevity, not progress and change, mark a good society.
l
The only
legitimate sources of political authority were God and history.
l
Rejected the
“social contract” theory
l
Conservative
believed self-interests do not lead to social harmony, but to social conflict.
l
Denounced
individualism and natural rights.
l
To conservatives,
society was hierarchical.
Liberalism
•
The theory of
liberalism was the first major theory in the history of Western thought to
teach that the individual is a self-sufficient being,w hose freedom and
well-being are the sole reasons for the existence of society.
•
Liberalism was
more closely connected to the sprit of the Enlightenment, than to any of the
other “isms” of the early 19th century.
•
Liberals tended
to come from the middle classes and favored increased liberty for their class
and indirectly, for the masses of people, as long as the latter did not in
their turn ask for too much freedom
•
Liberalism was
reformist and political rather than revolutionary in nature.
Characteristics of Liberalism
•
Individuals are entitled to seek their freedom
in the face of arbitrary or tyrannical restrictions imposed upon them.
l
Supported the concept of natural rights.
l Best
guaranteed by written constitutions.
l
Utilitarianism
l Founded
by Jeremy Bentham, this theory held the pleasure-pain principle as its key
idea.
l Bentham
equated pleasure with good and pain with evil.
l Supported
the concept of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
l
Liberals also advocated the “Balance of Power”
theory and free trade.
Economic Liberalism
•
Liberals advocated economic individualism.
l
Supported laissez faire economics
l “Wealth
of Nations” by Adam Smith 1776
•
Economic liberalism is acceptable because it
does not detract from the individual's moral dignity, nor does it conflict with
equality of opportunity and equality before the law.
l
Ricardo’s “Iron Law of Wages”
•
Economic liberalism claimed to be based on the
realities of a new industrial era.
l
The Industrial Revolution is beginning to take
place throughout Europe.
Early 19th Century Liberals
•
England:
l
Thomas Robington Macaulay & John Stuart Mill
•
France:
l
Benjamin Constant, Victor cousin, Jean Baptiste
Say and Alexis de Tocqueville
•
Germany:
l
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich List, Karl von
Rotteck and Karl Theodor Welcker
The Impact of Liberalism
•
Liberalism was involved in the various
revolutionary movements of the early 19th century.
•
It found concrete expression in over ten
constitutions secured between 1815 and 1848 in states of the German
Confederation.
•
Its power was demonstrated in the reform
measures that successive British governments adopted ruling these same decades.
•
It affected German student organizations and
permeated Prussian life.
Alexis de Tocqueville
•
Tocqueville spoke for many liberals when he
warned against the masses’ passion for equality, and their willingness to
sacrifice political liberty in order to improve their material well-being.
•
These fears were not without foundation.
l
In the 20th century, the masses have
sometimes shown themselves willing to trade freedom for authority, order,
economic security, and national power.
l Nazi
Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia
Nationalism
•
The regenerative force of liberal thought in
early 19th century Europe was dramatically revealed in the explosive
force of the power of nationalism.
•
Raising the level of consciousness of people
having a common language, soil, traditions, history, culture and shared human
experiences.
•
The ideas needed to promote political unity
around an identity of what or who constitutes the nation, was aroused and made
militant during the turbulent French Revolutionary era.
Characteristics of Nationalism
•
Early nationalist sentiment was romantic,
exuberant and cosmopolitan in nature.
•
The breakdown of society’s traditional loyalties
to church, dynastic state and region began during the course of the 18th
century.
•
Impelled by the French Revolution, new loyalties
were fashioned.
l
Sovereignty
l
The concept of a nation of people being united
by a common language, culture, and history.
Impact of Nationalism
•
Nationalistic
thinkers and writers examined the language, literature, and folkways of their
people, thereby stimulating nationalist feelings.
•
Emphasizing the
history and culture of the various European people tended to reinforce and
glorify national sentiment.
•
Most early 19th
century nationalist leaders adopted the ideas of the German
philosopher-historian Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), who is regarded as
the “Father of modern nationalism.”
l
Taught that every
people is unique and possesses a distinct national character, or Volksgeist.,
which as evolved over several centuries.
l
No one culture or
people is superior to any other.
l
All national
groups are parts of that great whole which is humanity.
Europe in Crisis, 1815-1833
“Repression, Reform and Revolution”
Order & Stability
•
The Vienna peace settlement signaled the triumph
of the political and social conservative order in Europe.
•
The dangerous ideas (Liberalism &
Nationalism) associated with the French Revolution had been contained.
•
The status quo had been once again defined
“Order” and “Stability” was expected in the European state system.
“New Ideas”
•
Underestimating
the power of ideas, the Conservative leadership after 1815 was, instead faced
with a dramatic confrontation between those who had been converted to the “new”
ideas and the traditional ruling classes, who were reluctant to discuss change.
l
The result of
such confrontation in most states was government sponsored repression followed
by revolution.
•
Few states chose
to respond to the call for liberal reform.
•
Only nationalist
impulses in Greece and Belgium were successful, for reasons which could hardly comfort
liberals.
l
The intellectual
climate of Romanticism provided a volatile atmosphere in which these vents
unfolded.
Post-War Repression
•
Initially, the great powers followed the lead of
the Austrian statesman Prince Metternich in suppressing any direct or indirect
expression of liberal faith.
•
Most leaders attempted to reinstitute
conservative means of governmental control, in order to prevent reforms in the
direction of greater participation by more people in government.
•
The literate middle class, supported by urban
workers, demanded reform and were willing to use violence to obtain it.
England
•
The Tory
(conservative) government that defeated Napoleon was in control of England.
•
Facing serious
economic problems that had produced large numbers of industrial unemployed, the
conservatives tried to follow a reactionary policy.
l
The Corn Law of
1815 effectively halted the importation of cheaper foreign grains.
l
Lead to
inflationary bread costs.
l
Coercion Acts of
1817 suspended “habeas corpus” for the first time in English history.
l
Provided for
arbitrary arrest and punishment of liberals.
l
The Peterloo
Massacre of 1819
l
People killed by
police in a riot during a protest of the Corn Laws.
l
The Six Acts of
Parliament in 1819
l
Repressive
measures taken in light of the Peterloo incident.
l
The Cato Street
Conspiracy
l
An unsuccessful
attempt to blow up the entire British cabinet.
France
•
France emerged
from the chaos of its revolutionary period as the most liberal large state on
the continent.
•
The period from
(1815- 1830) is always referred to as the Restoration Era, signifying the
return of the legitimate royal dynasty of France.
l
The infamous
Bourbon dynasty.
•
Louis XVIII
governed France as a Constitutional monarch, by agreeing to observe the
“Charter” or Constitution of the Restoration period.
l
The moderate
document limited royal power, granted legislative powers, protected civil
rights, and upheld the Napoleonic Codes.
The “Ultras”
•
Louis XVIII
wished to unify the French populace, which was divided into those who accepted
the Revolution and those who did not.
•
The leader of
those who did not was the Count of Artois (1757-1836), brother of the king and
leader of the Ultra Royalists.
•
The 1815 “White
Terror” saw royalist mobs murder thousands of former revolutionaries.
•
New elections in 1816
for the Chamber of Deputies resulted in the Ultras being rejected in favor of a
moderate royalist majority dependent on middle class support.
l
The was indemnity
was paid off, France was admitted to the Quadruple Alliance, and liberal
sentiment began to grow.
Conservative Reactionism
•
In Feb, 1820, the
Duke of Berri, son of Artois and heir to the throne after his father was
murdered.
•
Royalists charged
that the left were responsible and that the king’s policy of moderation had
encouraged the left.
•
Louis XVIII began
to move the government more and more to the right:
l
Changes in
electoral laws narrowed the eligible voters.
l
Censorship was
imposed.
•
Liberals were
bring driven out of legal political life and into near-illegal activity.
•
The triumph of
reactionism came in 1823, when French troops were authorized by the Concert of
Europe to crush the Spanish Revolution and restore another Bourbon ruler,
Ferdinand VII.
Austria & Germany
•
Throughout the first half of the 19th
century, the Austrian Empire and the German Confederation were dominated by
Prince Metternich.
•
To no other country or empire were the programs
of liberalism and nationalism potentially more dangerous.
•
Given the multi-ethnic composition of the
Hapsburg Empire, any recognition of the political rights and aspirations of any
of the national groups would mean the probable dissolution of the empire.
The German Confederation
•
It was Napoleon
who reduced over 300 German states to 39, and the Congress of Vienna which
preserved this arrangement under Austrian domination.
•
The purpose of
the German Confederation was to guarantee the independence of the member
states, and by joint action, to preserve all German states form domestic
disorder or revolution.
•
Its organization
of government was a Diet (assembly), presided over by Austria, as President.
•
The two largest
states of the Confederation were Austria and Prussia.
l
Austria was ruled
by the Hapsburg dynasty
l
Prussia was ruled
by the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Prussia
•
The Hohenzollern
dynasty, was a very aggressive royal family when it came to expanding the
borders of this northern German state.
l
Sometimes at the
expense of other German rulers.
•
For a short time
after 1815, German liberals looked to Prussia as a leader of German liberalism,
because of liberal reforms in government enacted after a humiliating defeat at
the hands of Napoleon.
l
These reforms
were intended to improve the efficiency of government and were not the portent
of a general trend.
•
The Prussian
government and its traditional ruling classes (Junkers) intended to follow the
lead of Metternich in repressing all liberal-nationalist agitation.
Prussian Liberalism
•
Liberal-nationalist
agitation was highly vocal and visible in and among German universities in the
first half of the 19th century.
•
Student
organizations, such as the Burschenschaften, were openly promoting political
arrangements that seemed radical and revolutionary at the time.
l
At the Wartburg
Festival (1817), students burned various symbols of authority.
l
Russian agent
Kotzbue was assassinated in 1819 by Karl Sand, a student member of the
Burschenschaften.
•
The Carlsbad Diet
was summoned in 1819 by Metternich to end the seditious acts of the liberals.
The Carlsbad Decrees
•
The first act of the Carlsbad Diet was to
dissolve the Burschenschaften.
•
Provided for university censors and inspectors.
•
A year later, the German confederation passed
the “Final Act,” which limited the subjects that might be discussed in the
constitutional chambers of Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and Baden.
•
For the next several years, secret police
harassed and arrested anyone thought to be a liberal radical.
Russia
•
From 1810 to 1825, Czar Alexander I governed
this traditional authoritarian state.
l
Thought he was called upon to lead Europe into a
new age of benevolence and good will.
l Establishment
of the “Holy Alliance”
l
After the Congress of Vienna, he became
increasingly reactionary and a follower of Metternich.
•
Alexander I was torn between the ideas of the
Enlightenment and those of traditional Russian absolutism.
Russian Liberalism
•
With the help of
liberal adviser, Michael Speransky, plans were made for a reconstruction of the
Russian government, due to the czar’s admiration for Napoleon’s administrative
genius.
l
This and other
liberal policies alienated the nobility and Speransky was dismissed.
•
Alexander came to
regard the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon in biblical
terms, seeing all three as anti-Christians.
l
Turning to a new
reactionary adviser, General Arakcheiev, repression became the order of the
day.
l
The early years
of possible liberal reform had given away to conservative repression.
Revolutions I
(1820-1829)
•
Nationalism, liberalism, and industrialism were
all key factors in the outbreak of revolution during the first half of the 19th
century.
•
All three “isms” were opposed by the
conservative groups of the population who were rooted in the way of life before
the French Revolution.
•
Promoting the new forces of change was a younger
generation:
l
The heirs of the Enlightenment who believed in
progress.
l
Romanticism whose atmosphere against which these
events were played out.
The Monroe Doctrine
•
British fears
that Metternich would attempt the restoration of Spain’s colonies then
revolting in Latin America, prompted George Canning to suggest, and then
support, the foreign policy statement of the United States known as the Monroe
Doctrine (1823).
•
This document
prohibited any further colonization and intervention by European powers in the
Western Hemisphere.
•
England hoped to
replace Spain in establishing her own trading monopoly with these former
Spanish colonies.
l
Throughout the 19th
century, British commercial interests dominated Latin America.
Latin American in Revolution
•
Inspired by the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic Period, the rise of Latin American nationalism between 1804 and 1824
would witness the end of three centuries of Spanish colonial rule.
•
Leaders of these revolutions were:
l
Toussaint L’Ouverture
l
Jose San Martin
l
Bernado O’Higgins
l
Simon Bolivar
l
Miguel Hidalgo
The Revolutions of the 1820s
•
Spain (1820-1823)
l
Beginning in Jan.
1820 a mutiny of army troops under Colonel Rafael Reigo began, in opposition to
the persecution of liberals by the restored monarch, King Ferdinand VII.
l
The Congress of
Verona (1822) authorized a French army to invade Spain and crush the revolutionaries.
•
Italy (1820-1821)
l
Incited to
revolution by the activities of secret liberal-nationalist organizations
(“carbonari”), liberals revolted in Naples in July 1820
l
Protesting the
rule of Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
l
The Congress of Laibach
(1821) authorized Austria to invade and suppress the rebels.
l
An attempted uprising in the Piedmont was also crushed by
Austrian forces in 1821.
The Greek Revolt
•
The revolution
which broke out in Greece in 1821, while primarily a nationalist uprising
rather than a liberal revolution, was part of a larger problem known as “The
Eastern Question.”
l
Greece was part
of the Ottoman Empire, whose vast territories were gradually being recessed
throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries.
l
The weakness of
the Ottoman Empire was the political and economic ramifications of this
instability for the balance of power in Europe kept the major powers in a
nervous state of tension.
l
Because of
conflicting interests, the major powers were unable to respond in any harmonious
fashion for s4veral years.
•
The revolt ended
up being a leading political question in Europe throughout the 1820s.
European Support
•
Occurring in the
Romantic era, the revolt touched the sensitivities of romantics in the West.
•
A Greek appeal to
Christian Europe did not move Prussia or Austria, but did fuse England, France,
and Russia into a united force, that defeated a combined Turko-Egyptian naval
force at Navarino Bay in 1827.
•
Greek
independence was recognized through the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829.
•
Greek nationalist
triumphed over the conservative Vienna agreement, and three of the five great
powers had aided a movement that violated their agreement of 1815.
l
The
self-interests of the great powers demonstrated the growing power of
nationalism in the international system.
Serbia
•
Since the late 18th century, Serbia
had sought independence from the Ottoman Empire.
l
Between 1804 & 1813, Kara-george had led a
guerilla war against the Ottoman Turks.
•
Though unsuccessful, the revolt helped to build
national unity within Serbia.
•
In 1815 and 1816, a new leader, Milos, succeeded
in negotiating greater autonomy for Serbia.
•
In 1830, the Ottoman sultan formally granted
independence to Serbia.
The Decembrist Uprising in Russia
•
The death of
Alexander I on December 1, 1825 resulted in the first significant uprising in
Russian history.
•
The expected
succession of Constantine (liberal), older brother of Alexander, did not
materialize.
•
Instead his
conservative younger brother Nicholas claimed the throne.
•
Hoping to block
Nicholas’ succession, a group of moderately liberal junior military officers
staged a demonstration in later December, in St. Petersburg.
l
It was quickly
ended by an artillery attack ordered by Nicholas.
•
The Decembrists
were the first upper-class opponents of the autocratic Russian government.
l
Due to the
revolt, Nicholas held disdain for the liberal cause.
“Official Nationality”
•
A program called
“Official Nationality” with the slogan, “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and national
Unity,” was designed to lead Russia back to its historic roots.
l
Through it,
Nicholas I, became the most reactionary monarch in Europe.
•
Domestically,
Russia became a police state with censorship and state-sponsored terrorism.
l
There was no
legislative assembly and educational opportunities were limited.
•
In foreign
affairs the same extreme conservatism was demonstrated.
l
Russian troops
helped to put down a revolution in Poland in 1830.
l
Russian troops
also played a role in stamping out Hungarian independence against Austria.
l
The Crimean War
occurred during the 1850s.
l
A war between
Russia and France over protectorate powers in the Balkan region.
England Chooses Reform Over Revolution
•
The climax of
repression in England was the Six Acts of Parliament in 1819.
l
Young
conservatives began to questions the policies of the elder conservatives such
as Castlereagh.
l
During the 1820s,
a new group of younger Tories would moderate their party’s unbending
conservatism.
l
George Canning and
Robert Peel
•
With the help of
liberal Whigs, enough votes were found to put England on the road to liberal
reforms.
l
Amore liberal
foreign policy was instituted.
l
Mercantile and
navigation acts were liberalized.
l
Repeal of the
Test Act (banned non-Anglicans from government posts)
l
The Catholic
Emancipation Act (1829)
•
The momentum for
liberal reform would continue into the 1830s.
Revolutions II
1830-1833
•
The Conservative grip on Europe following the
turbulence of the 1820s was very quickly challenged, when revolution broke out
in France in 1830.
•
By then, the forces of liberalism and nationalism
had become so strong that they constituted major threats to the security of
many governments.
•
In eastern Europe, nationalism was the greater
danger, while in the West the demands of middle class liberals for various
political reforms grew louder.
The July Revolution
•
The death of Louis XVIII in 1824 brought
Charles, Count of Artois and leader of the ultra Royalists to the throne as
Charles X
l
Set the stage for a return to the “Old Regime,.”
l
Charles alienated the moderates as well as the
liberals.
•
Charles’ continued violations of the Charter
enabled French voters to register their displeasures in the elections of 1827
by giving the liberals a substantial gain in the Chamber of Deputies.
To the Barricades
•
In 1829, when
Charles X appointed a ministry led by the Prince of Polignac, (stern
reactionary), liberals considered this a declaration of war.
•
Elections in 1830
produced a stunning victory for the liberals.
•
Charles responded
by decreeing the “Four Ordinances” which would have amounted to a royal Coup
d’ etat, if not stopped.
•
Radicals in Paris
raised barricades in the streets with the intention of establishing a republic.
•
Charles abdicated
and fled France.
Louis Philippe
•
France was now
controlled by the bourgeoisie of upper-middle class bankers and businessmen.
•
With the
cooperation of Talleyrand, they agreed on Prince Louis Philippe, head of the
Orleans family, as their new king.
•
While the July
Monarchy of Louis Philippe was politically more liberal, socially it proved to
be quite conservative.
•
The news of the
successful July Revolution in France served as a spark to revolutionary
uprisings throughout Europe.
l
“When France
sneezes, the rest of Europe catches a cold.”
Belgian Independence
•
Since being
merged with Holland in 1815, the upper classes of Belgium had never reconciled
themselves to rule by a country with a different language, religion, and
economic life.
•
Inspired by the
July Revolution, a revolt against Dutch rule broke out in Brussels, led by
students and industrial workers.
l
The Dutch army
was defeated and forced to withdraw from Belgium by the threat of a Franco-British fleet.
•
A national
Congress wrote a liberal Belgium Constitution.
l
In 1831, Leopold
of Saxe-Coburg became king of the Belgians.
l
In 1839, the
Great Powers declared the neutrality of Belgium.
Poland
•
The new Czar of
Russia, Nicholas I, had the first opportunity to demonstrate his extreme
conservatism in foreign policy when a military insurrection broke out in later
1830, in Warsaw.
l
This
nationalistic uprising challenged the historic Russian domination of Poland.
l
The Russian
garrison was driven out of Poland.
l
The czar was
deposed as king of Poland.
•
An independent
Poland was proclaimed in 1831.
•
Nicholas ordered
the Russian army to invade Poland and crush the rebellion.
l
Poland became “a
land of graves and crosses.”
Italy
•
Outbreaks of liberal discontent continued to
grow in northern Italy.
•
Became the inspiration for Italian nationalists
who spoke of a unification process:
l
Young Italy (Guiseppi Mazzini)
l
Carbonari
•
Unorganized, the Italian revolutionaries were
easily crushed by Austrian troops under Metternich’s enforcement of the Concert
of Europe's philosophy.
•
Though hindered, the Italian “Risorgimento”
was well under way.
Germany
•
The Carlsbad Decree of 1819 had effectively
restricted freedom throughout Germany.
•
At the news of the July Revolution, German
university students and professors led street demonstrations that forced
temporary granting of constitutions in several minor states.
•
As in Italy, this liberal and nationalistic
movement was easily crushed by the influence of Metternich over the German
Confederation and Prussia.
Great Britain
•
When William IV came to the throne of England in
1830, several changes would occur within the English political system.
•
The Whigs scored major gains with their platform
calling for parliamentary reforms.
•
William IX asked Earl Grey (leader of the Whig
Party) to form a new government.
l
A reform bill increased the electorate by 50%
and “Rotten Boroughs” were replaced.
•
While the Reform Bill did not resolve all
political inequities, it marked a new beginning in English government.
Evaluation
•
Neither forces of revolution nor those of
reaction, were able to maintain the upper hand between 1789 and 1848.
•
Liberalism and nationalism, socialism and
democracy were on the march, but the forces of conservatism and reaction were
still strong enough to contain them.
•
Europe however was becoming polarized:
l
Western Europe
l Advocated
constitutionalism and industrial progress.
l
Eastern Europe
l Authoritarian
and committed to maintaining the status quo.