Transcript Chapter 16 – Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century: Modernization

Chapter 16 – Europe in the
Late Nineteenth Century:
Modernization, Nationalism,
Imperialism
The Rest of Europe
France
 After 1848 France headed in a
conservative and authoritarian
direction
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
(1808-1873), who had been
elected president of the
second republic in 1848,
seized power and declared
himself Emperor Napoleon III
in 1852
 He ruled as an authoritarian
dictator until the 1860s when
he inexplicably introduced
liberal reforms (released
political opponents from jail,
eased press censorship,
legalized unions, approved a
liberal constitution
 His reign ended with the
Franco-Prussian War (18701871)
France
 Paris refused to give in to either Napoleon III’s surrender or the
Prussians and staged on uprising known as the Paris
Commune (1871)
 Led by radical workers, the Communards (the resisters)
waged a war against both the French Provisional
Government set up by the Prussians and property owners
 The Communards included followers of Joseph Proudhon
as well as veterans of 1848
 After two months Adolphe Thiers, head of the provisional
government order the army to take Paris – which they did …
twenty thousand Communards were executed without trial
 The fear of such an uprising strengthened conservatives
across Europe
 The new government became the Third French Republic, a
weak and divided government that survived crisis after crisis
until WWI
France
 One such crisis was the Dreyfus Affair
The wrongful arrest and conviction of a Jewish artillery officer for
selling secrets to the Germans
 Split the country in two (on one side Anti-Semitic elements –
monarchists, army leaders, clergy, nationalists; on the other
defenders of the Republic, some liberals)
 Prominent writers Anatole France and Emile Zola, as well as
republican Georges Clemenceau, came to Dreyfus’s defense
 Dreyfus was cleared and released in 1906
 The republican victory was a defeat for the Catholic Church, which
had been integral in the Anti-Semitic attacks on Dreyfus; the
republican government ordered a strict division of church and state
 This same political division slowed social reform as well; unlike
Britain it took France several more decades before it would pass
comprehensive labor and social reform (such as pensions,
insurance, working conditions, etc.)
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Germany
 With unification Germany became the German Reich (empire) headed by
the king of Prussia William I, now the Kaiser (emperor) and his chancellor
Bismarck (the “Iron Chancellor”)
 There was an elected legislature, the Reichstag, but it had little power in
this era
 Bismarck saw the biggest threat to Germany as cultural – in 1873 he
inaugurated a movement designed to rid Germany of international
elements known as Kulturkampf (struggle for culture)
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Subjected the church to the state by limiting priests rights and ordering the
education of priests in state schools
All marriages were to be performed by the state
All churchmen who refused were imprisoned or exiled
Bismarck backed off in 1878 with the election of the new pope Leo XIII
Catholics remained a political force with the Catholic Center Party
 Bismarck then turned on the Socialists, despite their small size and
support in Germany … despite his efforts the Social Democratic Party
survived and is one of the most powerful forces in German politics by WWI
 To win the support of workers he passed social reforms (insurance
programs mostly)
 By 1900 Germany was on a par with Britain in power and industrial
capacity
Italy
 Italy faced many problems after unification
 Liberals wanted a secular state with civil marriage
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and public education; Roman Catholic Conservatives
wanted no such thing
Literacy was necessary to vote, disenfranchising 25
of Italy’s 27 million citizens
Italian workers abandoned the ineffective government
and turned to increasingly radical workers
movements advocating assassination and terrorism
Italy’s elite focused on imperial greatness and urged
for international conquest and colonization
By WWI Italy was a deeply divided nation; its
populace was the most cynical about government
action in all of Europe
Russia
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In the nineteenth century Russia
was not like western Europe
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Impact of the Renaissance,
Reformation, Scientific
Revolution, Enlightenment, and
Industrial Revolution barely felt
Still autocratic, dominated by
dogmatic religion (Orthodox
church), most people were
illiterate serfs, and only a tiny
urban middle class existed
This began to change after
Napoleon’s invasion
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The soldiers influenced by
western ideas (mostly liberalism,
but also broader Enlightenment
ideals) staged the Decembrist
Uprising of 1825 when Tsar
Alexander I (1801-1825) died
and Nicholas I (1825-1855) took
over
Alexander I
Russia
 Nicholas’s reign was marked by his fear of
revolution
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Wary of foreign influence, Nicholas instituted
official nationality, an ideology and policy of
Russian superiority – supremacy of the Russia
Orthodox church, the absolute power of the
tsar, and the superiority of Slavic culture
Created the Third Section, a secret police
agency
Russia
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The Reign of Alexander II (1855-1881)
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Alexander II
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Wanted to maintain tsarist rule, but also
wanted the strength and modernization
of the west (specifically nationalism and
free enterprise industrialization)
Emancipated the serfs in 1861 but did
not give them individual rights and kept
them tied to their villages
Allowed limited local self-government;
trial by jury; the practice of law
Opened borders; allowed western ideas
in; built railroads
Russian literature and culture flowered
among the intelligentsia; maintained a
strong notion of the “Russian soul”;
gave birth to a Pan-Slavic movement
Alexander II was assassinated by
frustrated liberals in 1881
Russia
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Alexander III (1881-1894) returned to the
oppression of the old tsars
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Reinstated the secret police; used antiSemitism to attack foreign influence
But did attempt to force industrialization;
built Trans-Siberian Railroad; Minister
of Finance Sergei Witte built on the
railraid to expand industry
Forced industrialization also made a lot
of people unhappy; exploited workers
while promoting literacy and awareness
of the west; increased dissatisfaction of
the intelligentsia
Led to a failed revolution in 1905 and
the situation worsened with the defeat
during the Russo-Japanese War
(1905)
Young tsar Nicholas II (1984-1917) was
forced to make some liberal
concessions, allowing the formation of a
parliament, the Imperial Duma
These changes were too little too late
Alexander III
Nicholas II