Transcript Nation-Building and Imperialism

Europe after Congress of
Vienna, 1815
Question for Thought
• How did the French Revolution shape
the political debates between
conservatives, liberal reformers, and
social revolutionaries after 1815?
• Connections between Romanticism as
a cultural movement and the
emergence of new forms of
Nationalism?
1820s & 1830s, cont.
• Greek revolution against Turks, 1822
• (joined by GB, France, and Russia)
• Belguim against the Netherlands for
Independence, 1830
• Flew Tricolor flag
• Drew support of other states
More Revolts
• Revolts against the Restoration
• “Troppau Memorandum” (1820)
• Decembrists against Czar Nicholas
1848
• Each country’s conflict unique, but all
consciously emulated revolutionary
tradition
• Spurred by famine in 1846-- lack of
grain drove up prices
• Democratic culture and national
aspirations
•
No matter how small, it would include
non-Germans.
No matter how large, it would also
exclude some Germans.
France, 1848
• France & the bourgeois banquet (which
was cancelled)
• The July Monarchy changed to the
Second Republic, led by Alphonse de
Lamartine. Gov’t included both
moderates and radicals
• Fighting for “Right to Work” instead of
“Right to Property”-- a new social nexus
Prussia,1848
• Kaiser Wilhelm IV responded to
uprisings with military force
• March 1848: Kaiser responds to
revolutionary crowds by retreating
troops and promising a national
assembly
• “Frankfurt Assembly”: 800 middle class
intellectuals and lawyers
Germany, 1848
German national aspirations had two
complications
1. non-German minorities lived in
German states (Poles, Czechs, Slavs,
Italian, Dutch)
2. “Germans” in other states (Austria,
Russian Poland, and more)
Italian Nationalism
• Guisseppe Mazzini led nationalist
revolution, assisted by Puis XI.
• Fall 1849, militarily repressed
Metternich resigned on March 13,
1848
“Europe, sire, is involved in a crisis which much exceeds the bounds of
political movements. It is a crisis in the social body. I foresaw the event; I
have combatted it consistently during a ministry of well-nigh forty years. To
check the torrent is no longer within the power of man. It can only be guided.
My efforts have been in vain. And as I so not know how to steer a middle
course, or to remain in a situation repugnant to my moral sense, I have retired
from the scene. Too advanced I years to hope to witness the events which may
ultimately, according to my views, put an end to the present crisis, it only
remains for me to offer to my master and to my country the good wishes
which I shall not cease to entertain for their inseparable happiness….
Condescend, sire, to retain a kind of remembrance of me and permit me to
assure you of the most profound respect. I remain, your Majesty, etc., etc.,
Metternich
Prince M’s letter to the king of Austria
•
•
1848 revolutions failed.
How and why?
No lasting constitutions
irreconcilable split between moderates
and radicals (liberals vs. democrats)
• Property triumphed over work. Prince
Louis Napoleon elected in Dec. 1848
• nationalist/ethnic partitions impossible
as repressive gov’t maintained empire
and feudalism
Nation-Building and
Imperialism
• Nation-Building within Europe
• Expanding borders to other lands
France
• Napoleon III: Elected president of
Second Republic in Dec. 1848. Created
Second Empire in 1851 through a coup
d’état
Created “Second Empire”
-Went thru phases of authoritarianism
and Liberal allowances.
Nation-Building, 1850–1914
(a new phase)
• Changed Nation: Britain
• Changed Nation: France
• New Nations: Italian Unification
• New Nations: German Unification
Unification of Italy:
Another
consequence
of Franco-Prussian
War
Germany / Prussia
• A vacuum of leadership: assemblymen
couldn’t agree
• Revolutions continued: peasants
ransacked tax offices, workers
smashed machines
• Social clubs proliferated-- considered
universal suffrage to be too radical
German Unification
• Kaiser Wilhelm I, two-house parliament
(1858)
• Expanded army, removed it from
parliamentary control
• Appointed minister-president Otto von
Bismarck (1962)
Unification of Germany
Otto von Bismarck
•
• Realpolitik : power was more important
p. 187 in the book
Fierce opponent of liberal politics
than “justice” or “freedom”
• Prussia should seize the opportunity to
unify diverse lands of Germany
• Bismarck unified Germany under
Prussian authority alone through war
(1860)
nationalities of
AustriaHungary, 1867
Multilingual
street scenes
from Germany
Franco-Prussian War:
Causes
Paris Commune,
1870
demands:
‣ the separation of church and state;
‣ the remission of rents owed for the entire period of the siege (during
which, payment had been suspended);
‣ the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries;
‣ the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of
National Guards killed on active service;
‣ the postponement of commercial debt obligations, and the abolition of
interest on the debts; and
‣ the right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it were
deserted by its owner; the Commune, nonetheless, recognized the
previous owner's right to compensation.
Images from the
Siege Period
•
http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/siege/
Franco-Prussian War
(1870-71)
Europe after FrancoPrussian War
Britain: No
Revolutions
• 1867: Benjamin Disraeli increased
British Electorate toward “genuine
democracy”
• Gladstone: introduced secret ballot.
Oxford and Cambridge would be open
to all denominations (1868)
Britain
Empire
• Imperialism in Britain focused on
Christianity, Civilization, and Commerce
• Document focus: White Man’s Burden,
Kipling
• Civilizing
Missions
Theodore Gericault
The Raft of the Medusa
1818-19
Napoleon wrote,
“This Europe of ours is a molehill. Only in
the East, where 600 million human beings
live, is it possible to found great empires
and realize great revolutions.”
Orientalism
• Europeans cast the Orient as a
contrasting mirror for their own societies
Delacroix,
Women of Algiers
(1934)
Suggestions for the division of people
Partitions of Africa between 1870 and 1914
Map Study
Understanding European Map