The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)
The Collapse of Napoleon’s Empire did not stop the consolidation of the Nation-State Model. The Absolute European Monarchs tried to restore the “Ancien Regime” through the Holy Alliance and the return of Divine legitimacy as base of sovereignty (pages 81-83). But it ended up failing after 1848 Revolution, that affected most of Europe.
We know already that the Nation-State model is incompatible with the idea of a Supranational political structure. This why European States after 1648 got rid definitively of the Universal model imposed so far by the Papacy and the Emperors. National sovereignty excluded the idea of a Supranational power.
It is interesting that during the 1815-1848 period Absolute monarchs pretending to rule because of their divine right imposed the Metternich System as a fore runner of European integration. That is a system in which all the European monarchs got together in “Congresses” when one of the kingdoms was in danger of falling into a Liberal regime based on the National sovereignty principle, under a constitution and a representative regime. Spain suffered in 1823 the intervention a foreign military coalition that did away with the Liberal Trienium proclaimed by the coup of Colonel Riego 3 years earlier (pages 91-92).
The “Liberal model” imposed during the American and the French Revolutions not only did not disappear but was consolidated despite the fierce resistance opposed by Absolute monarchs. (See the basis of this model in pages 84-88). A series of “liberal revolutions” in 1820-1830 and finally 1848 brought down definitively the Royal Absolute Model (pages 89-96). The most decisive one was the last one (97-103) that overspread all over Europe and showed clearly that the future was “liberal”, and liberalism meant the triumph of “Nation-States”.
The 1848 Revolution
It is extremely significant that it is after the 1848 Revolution that start the Italian and German unification that will lead to the creation of two of the most preeminent actual European States. 2 of the 6 founding members of the European Integration process. It is interesting that the way of the two integrations was opposite. Italian integration (pages 103-106) was “democratic” or “bottom up”, as military conquest was followed by a referendum where inhabitants were asked if they wished to integrate in the Unified Kingdom of Italy. On the contrary German unification (pages 106-109) was a “top down” integration imposed by the Monarch and his powerful chancellor Otto von Bismarck. A different approach that explains why Italian unification was more efficient, as we have to wait until the Weimar constitution (1919) to have a really unified Germany (the “Deutschland Lied” is the official German national Anthem only since 1920).
Garibaldi in Palermo (1861-1861)
After 1871 in any case the last bastion of autocracy was Imperial Russia, an abnormal situation that led to the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions.
What is really interesting of the Triumph of the Liberal regimen and the Nation State Model during the XIX the century is the consequence, that is: the rise of international confrontation between European Nation-States all over the world in the Era of Colonialism (pp. 111-114). The confrontation led to the Armed Peace and finally to World War I the European Nation-State´s suicide (pages 114-117).
The Armed Peace that led to the European suicide of 1914-1918
EXERCISING:
Besides Reading pages 79 to 117, and understanding the concepts and answering the questions I would like you to remember the following dates: Congress of Vienna, Battle of Waterloo, Spanish Liberal Triennium, Decembrist Revolt, 1830 (France and Belgium), British Electoral Reform Lord Grey, 1848, Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, 1861-1890 (Bismarck), 1866, 1868, 1870, 1871 (IInd Reich and Paris Commune), First Russian Revolution.
Concerning readings on education: Text nr. 3 “The importance of the historical approach to knowledge” (pages 329 to 331).
We will discuss all this in class
