The Conservative Order

• The immediate response to the defeat of Napoleon was the desire to contain revolution and the revolutionary forces by restoring much of the old order.

• In March 1814, even before Napoleon had been defeated, his four major enemies—Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia—had agreed to remain united, not only to defeat France but also to ensure peace after the war.

• After Napoleon’s defeat, this Quadruple Alliance restored the Bourbon monarchy to France in the person of Louis XVIII and agreed to meet at a congress in Vienna in September 1814 to arrange a final peace settlement.

• To re-establish peace and stability in Europe, Metternich claimed it was necessary to restore the legitimate monarchs who would preserve traditional institutions.

• This had already been done in France and Spain with the restoration of the Bourbons, as well as in a number of the Italian states where rulers had been returned to their thrones.

• Due to these territorial arrangements, Vienna believed that they were forming a new balance of power that would prevent anyone from dominating exploration. This was also made in fear of France because there was a fear that France was still too strong.

  The Ideology of Conservation:

  • The peace arrangements of 1815 were the beginning of many forces unleashed due to the french revolution. Metternich and his kind were representatives of the ideology known as conservatism.

  • European powers’ fear of revolution and war led them to develop the Concert of Europe.

  The Principle of Intervention:

  • Metternich was especially disturbed by the revolts in Italy because he saw them as a threat to Austria’s domination of the peninsula.

  • Austria, Prussia, and Russia authorized France to invade Spain to crush the revolt against Ferdinand VII. In the spring of 1823, French forces restored the Bourbon monarch.

  Revolt of Latin America:

  • Although much of North America had been freed of European domination in the eighteenth century by the American Revolution, Latin America remained in the hands of the Spanish and Portuguese.

  • By the end of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the Enlightenment and the new political ideals seemed very good.

  • The principles of the equality of all people in the eyes of the law, free trade, and a free press proved very attractive.

  The Greek Revolt:

  • The principle of intervention that was supposed to prevent revolution could be used to support it. The greats revolted against their Ottoman Turkish masters. The Greeks fought for their religious freedom and rights.

  Conservative Domination The European States:

  • Between 1815 and 1830, the conservative domination of Europe evident in the Concert of Europe was also apparent in domestic affairs as conservative governments throughout Europe worked to maintain the old order.

  • In 1815, Great Britain was governed by the aristocratic landowning classes that dominated both houses of Parliament.

  • Suffrage for elections to the House of Commons, controlled by the landed gentry, was restricted and unequal, especially in light of the changing distribution of the British population due to the Industrial Revolution.

  • The Congress of Vienna had established nine states in Italy. Much of Italy was under Austrian domination, and all the states had extremely reactionary governments eager to smother any liberal or nationalist sentiment.

The Ideologies of Change:

• Liberalism is an ideology that owed a lot to the enlightenment of the 18th century.

• Also called classical economics, economic liberalism had as its primary tenet the concept of laissez-faire, the belief that the state should not interrupt the free play of natural economic forces, especially supply and demand.

• Government should not restrain the economic liberty of the individual and should restrict itself to only three primary functions: defense of the country, police protection of individuals, and the construction and maintenance of public works too expensive for individuals to undertake.

• Politically, people came to hold similar beliefs. This includes equality before the law; freedom of assembly, speech, and press; and freedom from arbitrary arrest.

  Nationalism:

  • Nationalism was a powerful ideology for change in the nineteenth century. This arose out of an awareness of being part of a community that has common institutions, traditions, language, and customs.

Revolution and Reform:

• Around the 1830s change started in the domination of Europe. Finally in 1848 people started asking for change and a revolutionary fever spread around.

  Another French Revolution:

  • The new elections Charles X had called in 1830 produced another victory for the French liberals; at this point, the king decided to seize the initiative.

• He issued edicts that dissolved the legislative assembly, reduced preparation for new elections. There was an immediate rebellion to this.

  Revolutionary Outburst:

  • Liberalism supporters played a huge role but nationalism was also a big thing that helped revolutionary outburst.

  • The merger of Catholic Belgium into the Protestant Dutch Republic never sat well with the Belgians.

  • In 1830, they rose up against the Dutch and succeeded in convincing the major European powers to accept their independence.

  Reform in Great Britain:

  • The industrial revolution had made new thinkers and expanded the group of leaders that objected to the corrupt British electoral system. This gave the communities some voice in the government.

  • There was a reform act in 1832 that benefited the upper middle class and they were able to vote, but the lower class still did not have a say.

  • The 1830s and 1840s witnessed considerable reform legislation. The aristocratic landowning class was usually the driving force for legislation that halted some of the worst abuses in the industrial system by instituting government regulation of working conditions in the factories and mines.

  • The industrialists and manufacturers now in Parliament opposed such legislation and were usually the driving forces behind legislation that favored the principles of economic liberalism.

  Revolution of 1848:

  • Despite successful revolutions the conservative order still had control of a lot of Europe. So forces of change erupted once again.

  • This spark in France provided the spark for many other countries.

  • Soon there were revolts in Italian and German states.

  Failures:

  • Throughout Europe in 1848, popular revolts had initiated revolutionary upheavals that had led to the formation of liberal constitutions and liberal governments.

  • The unity of the revolutionaries had made the revolutions possible, but divisions soon shattered their ranks, and governments were in power again.

The Emergence of an Ordered Society:

• Everywhere in Europe, the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries made the ruling elites nervous about social disorder and the potential dangers to their lives and property.

• At the same time, the influx of large numbers of people from the countryside into the rapidly growing cities had led to horrible living conditions, poverty, unemployment, and great social dissatisfaction.

• The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant increase in crime, especially against property, in Britain, France, and Germany.

• The rise in property crimes provoked a severe reaction among middle-class urban residents, who feared that the urban poor posed a threat to their security and possessions.

• New police forces soon appeared to defend the propertied classes from criminals and social misfits.

Culture and Age of Reaction and Revolution: The Mood of Romanticism:

• By the end of the 18th-century romanticism had emerged to challenge the Enlightenment.

• Romantic writers emphasized emotion, sentiment, and inner feelings in their works.

• To the Romantics, poetry ranked above all other literary forms because they believed it was the direct expression of one’s soul. There were also romantic artists.

• They used their work as a reflection of their inner feelings. Music was also big on romanticism because it enabled the use of deep human emotions. One great romantic Musician is Beethoven.