The Vienna Congress (1815)
19th century is the European century. In the first half the principle of the Nation-State through the Laissez-faire (liberal) regime extends all over Europe despite the resistance of the Absolutists sovereigns reunited in the Congress of Vienna (1815) and signatories of the Holy Alliance, and Metternich's policy of counterrevolutionary military intervention.
Klemmens von Metternich (1773-1859)
It is true that thanks to Metternich's system European sovereigns agreed on a common policy to fight revolutions as the one started by Riego in Spain in 1820, that was followed by movements like the Decembrist Revolt in Russia (1825).
The Decembrists in Saint Peterburg (1825)
But Metternich's system ends when the UK walks away from the Holy Alliance because Her Majesty's Government and British ruling classes do not want to back the repression of the rebellion in Spanish America, as they saw a great potential for British Colonial interests in Central and South America. And the same is true with the Greek War of independance (1821-1832) against the Ottoman Empire,where notorious European intellectuals like Lord Byron (1788-1824) are willing to figh and die for.
The Metternich System collapses also in France with the 1830 revolution that brings also the Belgian Revolution against the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the creation of the Belgian State. These movements would also have an extremely important repercussion in England, as they led to the crucial electoral reform of Lord Grey in 1832 that transform the nature of the English Parliamentary system in the sense of rendering it more representative, opening up the way to the democratization of the British Political System. A process that would not be completed entirely until the the right of vote was granted to British women in 1928.
The 1830 French Revolution by Eugène Delacroix
The whole order established in the Congress of Vienna crumbles definitely in the rest of Europe with the wave of 1848 revolutions, that brings liberal nationalism to Italy, Austria and Prussia. This crucial movement would end up changing the political history of Continental Europe, starting with the Unification movements that happened in Italy and Germany. It also enables the creation of the French Second Republic, which is the first "social" regime in European history. 1848 is significantly also the year in which Marx and Engels publish their "Communist Manifesto". Socialists ideas would be the main ennemy of the European bourgeois liberal regimes.
The 1848 Revolution in Berlin
The first permanent consequence of 1848 Revolution is the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 through the movement of the Risorgimento headed by the Comte of Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Italian unity would be completed in 1870 when Italian troops occupied the Papal States and Rome became the Capital of Italy. The popes would not have again an independent State until 1929, and thanks to Mussolini who agrees on creating the Vatican city state. .
For understanding what the liberal revolution meant to the Italian Nation you should read the indispensable novel The Leopard (1958), of Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa (1896-1957), published posthumously. The Story of a Sicilian Aristocrat the Prince of Salina who is fully conscious of the changes that the Risorgimento revolution is bringing, and realizes that old nobility has to adapt to the new times, accepting the change "so that everything could remain the same".
This novel created a neologism, el gattopardismo, which we might define as any political action consisting of presenting as revolutionary an idea that, in reality, does not seek to change economic or social foundations but rather to maintain the status quo. If you want to understand this key concept better, I encourage you to read the book, or, at the very least, watch Luchino Visconti movie (1963) with the same title, starring Burt Lancaster, in one of his most memorable performances. It is a beautiful film that effectively conveys the novel's themes of decline and impermanence. Do not miss it.
A scene from The Leopard by Luchino Visconti (1963)
The German unification promoted by Bismarck, would be the result of the Prussian overwhelming victories over Austria, and especially over Napoleon III. The defeat of the French Second Empire would give way to the creation of the German Second Reich, with the proclamation of William I of Prussia as Kaiser in Versailles. A huge humiliation for the French that would be one of the causes of the anger towards Germany that would provoke the disaster of the Peace of Versailles in 1919. The new German Empire, the North German Confederation headed by Prussia, was not a totally unified state, and on top of that it was not a Parliamentary Regime as the Government was designated by the Kaiser and not by the Reichstag. The German unification and the instauration of the Parliamentary Regime would not occur until the foundation of the Weimar Republic in 1919.
Proclamation of the Second Reich in Versailles (January 18, 1871)
As far as the Liberal revolutions cycle is concerned Imperial Russia would be the last bastion of autocracy, until the 1905 Revolution, provoked by the humiliating defeat of Tsarist Russia by Imperial Japan.
17 October 1905. Painting by Ilya Repin
Thanks to the 1905 movement Russia will have a sort of Liberal regime from 1906 to 1917. But because of the Soviet Revolution of October 1917 it would not reach its definitive consolidation. Not only the Monarchy was abolished, but the Imperial family was murdered on the night of the 16-17 July 1918 in Yekaterinburg by order of Lenin.
If you want to understand how Europe became the leading continent in the World you should not miss Orlando Figes book The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture (2020).
The Europeans is a richly enthralling, panoramic cultural history of nineteenth-century Europe, told through the intertwined lives of three remarkable people: a great singer, Pauline Viardot, a great writer, Ivan Turgenev, and a great connoisseur, Pauline's husband Louis. Their passionate, ambitious lives were bound up with an astonishing array of writers, composers and painters all trying to make their way through the exciting, prosperous and genuinely pan-European culture that came about as a result of huge economic and technological change. This culture - through trains, telegraphs and printing - allowed artists of all kinds to exchange ideas and make a living, shuttling back and forth across the whole continent from the British Isles to Imperial Russia, as they exploited a new cosmopolitan age. (Extracted from AMAZON web page).
From a Legal perspective, all the revolutionary movements that happen in Europe in the course of the 19th century in the name of the Liberal state principles end up bringing legal tools like constitutions, sets of fundamental rights and, above all, a national narrative that consolidates the independence of every European State. The result of all this rising nationalism is the amazing colonial expansion that will make European Nation-States extremely wealthy and powerful to the point they would control the whole World that was distributed among the colonial European states, like it happened in the Berlin Conference of 1884 with the African continent.
And the same thing happened with Asia, where Europeans controlled most of the oldest and most prestigious civilization like India or China.
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The result of it is that Europe ends up controlling a lot of territorie world wide. This is why the 19th century is undoubtedly the European century. Tough we have to mention also the case of Japan, a country that fully accepts the American-European Western model in 1868, with what is called the Meiji Revolution. The result of the Westernization of Japan results in Japanese imperialism a ming at China and at the Pacific area. A map of the World around 1900 would look like the one that appears in the following image:
Nevertheless the European colonial expansion iends badly as it increases gradually the tensions among the different colonial powers, which reamrm themselves very strongly trying to get as many colonies as possible, and followin the classic Roman principle "Si vis pacem para bellum". This is why the last third of the 19th century is known as the Armed Peace period. The military equilibrium based in alliances would finally be broken in 1914. And European Nation-States would commit suicide in the horrid and absurd World War I.
The most important idea you have to retain from Teaching Guide 5 is that a Europe of wealthy and powerful national states drove them to an anihilating war. An important lesson that proud European States will not learn until the end of World War II, when a destroyed Old Continent had totally disappeared from the world scene. To the point that European governments realized that only united they could survive.
INSTRUCTIONS: First read the text included in your Materials (pages 80 to 118), before proceeding to answer the Concrete Questions, the Concepts and the General Questions.
Concerning the Basic Chronology (pages 119-121) the crucial dates are the following:
1815, 1820-1823, 1830, 1832, 1848, 14 March 1861, 1862-1890 (Bismarck), 1868, 1870, 1871, 1904, 1905, 1906.
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN CLASS: Are the principles of the revolutionary liberalism still valid in our Western Democracies ?
Please consider the following aspects:
1. Think that the Liberal regime establishes severe limits to the government, through the Constitution, the Declaration of Fundamental Rights and the Parliamentary regime. Think of how everyone of these limits work.
2. Look for the Concept of the “Rule of Law” (“Estado de derecho” in Spanish)
3. Do you think that the rule of law is really respected by Western governments? Provide some concrete examples.
4. Do you think that there are questions that justify governmental authoritarianism?
5. “ Please explain what Churchill meant when he said that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”
Winston Churchill in 1941 by Yousuf Karsh
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