The Making of the West:Peoples and Cultures Sixth Edition
CHAPTER 20
Napoleon and the Revolutionary Legacy
1800–1830
Hunt • Martin • Rosenwein • Smith
Copyright © 2019 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
Distributed by Bedford/St. Martin’s/Macmillan Learning strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
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Napoleon and the Revolutionary Legacy1800–1830
Chapter Twenty
I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
A. A General Takes Over
Military successes and client republics
Failure in Egypt
Fall of the Directory
Bonaparte as First Consul
I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
A. A General Takes Over
1. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) rose from penniless, imprisoned artillery officer to supreme ruler of France in four years.
2. After his astounding military successes in the Italian campaigns of 1796–1797, he defeated the Piedmontese and the Austrians.
3. He established client republics that were dependent upon him by negotiating directly with the Austrians, while paying his army with the cash he received as tribute to ensure its loyalty.
4. Napoleon quieted any discontent in the Directory by sending confiscated Italian art back to France.
5. In 1798, he was given command of an Egyptian invasion force sent to cut the British trade route to India. Despite French victory over the Egyptian army, British naval activity caused the invasion to fail.
6. Napoleon did introduce Enlightenment legal reform to Egypt, and his forces uncovered the Rosetta Stone, a slab of black basalt dating back to 196 b.c.e. that was inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek, allowing linguists to decipher hieroglyphs for the first time.
7. Bonaparte returned to France in October 1799, when France was in the midst of a series of crises. Powerful generals, supported by their troops, had become virtually independent.
8. Anti-Directory conspirators, including Bonaparte’s brother, arranged for the overthrow of the legislature, allowing a rump assembly to abolish the Directory and establish the consulate, a three-man executive that included Napoleon as First Consul.
9. A new constitution — without a declaration of rights — was written and submitted to the apathetic public for a vote, the results of which were falsified to show more support for the new government.
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I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
B. From Republic to Empire
Council of State
Centralization of state power
Imperial rule
I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
B. From Republic to Empire
1. The constitution of 1799 installed Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul with the right to choose the Council of State, which drew up all the laws.
2. The Council eliminated direct elections for deputies and denied independent powers to the three houses of the legislature.
3. Although he was not religious, Napoleon signed a concordat (agreement) with Pope Pius VII (r. 1800–1823) in 1801 to reconcile Catholics to the regime. Catholicism was recognized as the religion of “the great majority of French citizens,” and the pope validated the sale of church lands that had occurred during the Revolution. Catholic priests and Protestant pastors were paid by the state.
4. Napoleon continued to centralize state power by creating the Bank of France and appointing prefects who supervised local affairs in each department in the country. He reestablished order in France, in part by using government censors and the police to limit opposition and by censoring newspapers, operas, and plays.
5. When royalists attempted to assassinate Napoleon with a bomb in 1800, his minister of police, Joseph Fouché, used the incident to arrest hundreds of Jacobins.
6. Napoleon also struck at royalists; in 1804, his agents kidnapped the duke d’Enghien, a relative of the French royal family, from Germany on false charges of having plotted against Napoleon. After a quick trial, d’Enghien was executed.
7. In 1802, Napoleon named himself First Consul for life, and in December 1804, he crowned himself emperor. His actions were approved by plebiscites.
8. Napoleon worked hard to establish his authority and to cultivate his image, which was reproduced on coins, on public monuments, and in paintings.
9. His ostentatious building projects, most of which were in the neoclassical style, included the Arc de Triomphe and the Stock Exchange.
10. Napoleon’s most trusted officials from past military campaigns helped him rule, and his effective bureaucracy was based on a patron-client relationship.
11. He reinstituted a social hierarchy that rewarded merit and talent regardless of birth. He also created an aristocracy based in part on wealth and installed his relatives in positions of power and influence.
12. In 1810, to establish a new dynasty, he divorced his childless wife Josephine and married an Austrian princess. He designated their son the king of Rome.
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I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
C. The New Paternalism: The Civil Code
Napoleonic Code
Male domination
Education
Restrictions on workers
I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
C. The New Paternalism: The Civil Code
1. One of Napoleon’s first acts as emperor was the creation of the Civil Code, or Napoleonic Code: the first unified system of law for France.
2. Napoleon’s familial model of power placed men firmly in charge. The Civil Code reasserted the Old Regime’s system of male domination over women and insisted on a father’s control over, and responsibility for, his children.
3. The code severely curtailed women’s rights, making women responsible for private virtue because Napoleon believed a woman’s place was in the home.
4. The code was adopted in many European and Latin American countries, as well as in the French colony of Louisiana.
5. The government managed military-style education at the new lycées for boys but took little interest in educating girls.
6. All workers were required to carry a card attesting to their good conduct, and workers’ organizations were prohibited.
7. Arbitration boards were established in 1806 to settle labor disputes, but they treated workers as minors and demanded that they be represented by foremen and shop superintendents.
8. Limitations on workers’ rights won Napoleon the support of French business.
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I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
D. Patronage of Science and Intellectual Life
Promotion of science
Napoleon and writers
Madame de Staël
François-René de Chateaubriand
I. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte—cont’d
D. Patronage of Science and Intellectual Life
1. Napoleon promoted scientific inquiry, especially if it served practical purposes.
2. During his reign, experiments with balloons led to the discovery of laws about the expansion of gases, research on fossil shells prepared the way for new theories of evolutionary change later in the century, and new techniques of amputation and medical care were developed.
3. While he encouraged scientists, Napoleon considered most writers useless or dangerous.
4. Madame de Staël (1766–1817), like many of the country’s talented writers, had to live in exile.
5. Her novel Corinne (1807) criticized the regime by focusing on a brilliant woman thwarted by a patriarchal system.
6. Even though Napoleon restored the authority of the state and of religion, many Catholics and royalists criticized him as a usurper.
7. François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) believed that Napoleon had “saved [France] from the abyss” but he still preferred monarchy and did not believe that Napoleon had done enough to defend Christian values against the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason.
8. In his Genius of Christianity (1802), Chateaubriand argued that Napoleon did not understand the mystical power of faith.
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II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests
A. The Grand Army and Its Victories, 1800–1807
Numbers, experience, and morale
Unity
Strategy and tactics
Progress of the war
II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests
A. The Grand Army and Its Victories, 1800–1807
1. Conscription provided Napoleon with a large army, and the army also offered social mobility and appealed to French patriotism. Officers who rose through the ranks were young, ambitious, and experienced, and the French military had higher morale than the armies of other powers.
2. Napoleon ended the squabbling among generals that characterized the Directory by uniting all French forces into a single Grand Army under his personal command.
3. Despite the difficult conditions under which soldiers fought, Napoleon inspired an almost fanatical personal loyalty, fighting alongside his troops in some sixty battles.
4. Napoleon’s favorite tactic was to attack the main body of the opposing army in a lightning strike with the largest force possible and to follow up decisive victories with relentless pursuit.
5. He served as his own operations officer, but he failed to train independent subordinates. Supply was a constant problem.
6. A lack of coordination among his enemies’ armies was one of his greatest advantages; he therefore maneuvered diplomatically and militarily to face them one at a time.
7. Napoleon’s victories in the battles of Marengo and Hohenlinden in 1800 forced the Austrians to agree to peace.
8. This success was followed in 1802 by the Treaty of Amiens with the British, which lasted only until 1803.
9. During this temporary truce, Napoleon sent forces to St. Domingue to retake the colony but was forced to withdraw because of the organized resistance by the black population and an epidemic of yellow fever.
10. As part of his retreat from the Western Hemisphere and because of his especial need for funds, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803.
11. When war resumed, the British navy defeated the French and their Spanish allies in the battle of Trafalgar (1805).
12. That same year, Napoleon defeated the Austrians at Ulm, and the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz.
13. Prussia entered the war and was promptly defeated at Jena and Auerstädt in 1806.
14. In 1807, Napoleon again defeated the Russians at Friedland.
15. The ensuing treaties of Tilsit — negotiated between Napoleon and Russian tsar Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) — resulted in Prussia’s suffering a significant loss of territory.
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II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
B. The Impact of French Victories
Satellite kingdoms
Rule in colonized territories
Pressure for reform in Prussia and Russia
Resistance to French rule
II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
B. The Impact of French Victories
1. By annexing some territories and setting up others as satellite kingdoms with little autonomy, Napoleon attempted to colonize much of Europe.
2. He united the disparate German and Italian states to rule them more effectively, and in 1806 he established the Confederation of the Rhine, which included almost all the German states except Austria and Prussia. The Holy Roman Emperor resigned his title and became simply emperor of Austria.
3. Napoleon consolidated Italy by annexing the territories next to France and establishing the kingdoms of Italy and Naples.
4. Annexed territories, ruled directly from France, and satellite kingdoms, usually ruled by one of Napoleon’s relatives, were subject to French laws and French-style reforms.
5. Napoleon abolished serfdom, eliminated seigneurial dues, introduced the Napoleonic Code, suppressed monasteries, subordinated church to state, and extended civil rights to Jews and other religious minorities.
6. Reactions to these innovations were mixed: real improvements in roads, public works, law codes, education, and the economy were achieved, but increased taxes and conscription to support conquests and occupations aggravated dissent.
7. Conflicts arose when Napoleon’s desire to standardize and unify came up against local insistence on old customs and traditions. Such resistance led Napoleon to annex the satellite kingdom of Holland in 1810 when his brother Louis became too sympathetic to Dutch interests.
8. Napoleon’s success put pressure on defeated rulers to rethink political and cultural assumptions. In Prussia, Frederick William III abolished serfdom, expanded the liberties of peasants, and reformed the army along French lines in order to compete.
9. Tsar Alexander I made a few efforts at reform in Russia, including the founding of new universities and urging nobles to free their serfs, but these reforms had little impact on Russian life.
10. The one power standing between Napoleon and total domination of Europe was Great Britain.
11. In 1806, Napoleon established the Continental System, which prohibited trade between Great Britain and France, its dependent states, and its allies.
12. The system at first harmed Britain’s trade, but because smuggling was rampant, British industrial growth continued.
13. Resistance to the French encouraged the development of nationalism in other countries.
14. In southern Italy, gangs of bandits and a network of secret societies, the carbonari, harassed the French army and local officials.
15. Resistance was greatest in Spain and Portugal: the nobles feared revolutionary reforms, the Catholic church spread anti-French propaganda, and the peasants fought to defend their priests and resented French requisitions of food.
16. Assisted by the British, Portuguese and Spanish rebels engaged Napoleon in a six-year war for national independence. The war was marked by brutal atrocities committed by both sides.
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II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
C. From Russian Winter to Final Defeat, 1812–1815
Alliance among resistance
Invasion of Russia
Napoleon’s first exile
II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
C. From Russian Winter to Final Defeat, 1812—1815
1. By 1812, only Great Britain and Russia remained independent of Napoleon.
2. Great Britain sent aid to the Portuguese and Spanish rebels, while Tsar Alexander I made peace with the Ottoman Empire and allied himself with Great Britain and Sweden.
3. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with an enormous army, engaging the main Russian force at Borodino in September, which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides.
4. Napoleon took Moscow, but the departing Russians had set the city on fire, and the tsar refused to negotiate.
5. With supplies running low, Napoleon began his retreat in October; in November, the bitter Russian winter began.
6. By December, only one-sixth of Napoleon’s original troops had returned to France.
7. Many of Napoleon’s difficulties were caused by the fact that he was fighting on two fronts, and many French soldiers were tied down in Spain and Portugal during the Russian campaign.
8. Napoleon replenished his armies by the spring of 1813, but a coalition of Russian, Austrian, Prussian, and Swedish armies — backed by British financial support — defeated him at the Battle of the Nations, as satellite provinces revolted and joined the coalition.
9. In March 1814, the French Senate deposed and exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba off the coast of Italy.
10. Louis XVIII (r. 1814–1824) was restored to the throne.
11. The new king was caught between returning émigré nobles, who demanded restoration of their lands and powers, and those who had benefited from the Revolution or from Napoleon’s reign.
12. This chaos gave Napoleon the opportunity to escape exile and return to France, which he did during the so-called Hundred Days.
13. Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon reconstituted his army with former soldiers still loyal to him.
14. Napoleon was once again defeated by a coalition of European powers at Waterloo.
15. He abdicated and entered permanent exile on the island of St. Helena off the coast of West Africa, a British colony, where he died in 1821.
16. Napoleon’s wars killed 750,000 French soldiers and 400,000 soldiers from territories he controlled, but his unification of Europe, his spread of French reforms, and the national sentiment generated by resistance to him all set the agenda for modern European history.
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II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
C. From Russian Winter to Final Defeat, 1812–1815—cont’d
– Louis XVIII
– Defeat and end of Napoleon’s empire
– Impact of Napoleon
II. “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests—cont’d
C. From Russian Winter to Final Defeat, 1812—1815—cont’d
1. By 1812, only Great Britain and Russia remained independent of Napoleon.
2. Great Britain sent aid to the Portuguese and Spanish rebels, while Tsar Alexander I made peace with the Ottoman Empire and allied himself with Great Britain and Sweden.
3. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with an enormous army, engaging the main Russian force at Borodino in September, which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides.
4. Napoleon took Moscow, but the departing Russians had set the city on fire, and the tsar refused to negotiate.
5. With supplies running low, Napoleon began his retreat in October; in November, the bitter Russian winter began.
6. By December, only one-sixth of Napoleon’s original troops had returned to France.
7. Many of Napoleon’s difficulties were caused by the fact that he was fighting on two fronts, and many French soldiers were tied down in Spain and Portugal during the Russian campaign.
8. Napoleon replenished his armies by the spring of 1813, but a coalition of Russian, Austrian, Prussian, and Swedish armies — backed by British financial support — defeated him at the Battle of the Nations, as satellite provinces revolted and joined the coalition.
9. In March 1814, the French Senate deposed and exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba off the coast of Italy.
10. Louis XVIII (r. 1814–1824) was restored to the throne.
11. The new king was caught between returning émigré nobles, who demanded restoration of their lands and powers, and those who had benefited from the Revolution or from Napoleon’s reign.
12. This chaos gave Napoleon the opportunity to escape exile and return to France, which he did during the so-called Hundred Days.
13. Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon reconstituted his army with former soldiers still loyal to him.
14. Napoleon was once again defeated by a coalition of European powers at Waterloo.
15. He abdicated and entered permanent exile on the island of St. Helena off the coast of West Africa, a British colony, where he died in 1821.
16. Napoleon’s wars killed 750,000 French soldiers and 400,000 soldiers from territories he controlled, but his unification of Europe, his spread of French reforms, and the national sentiment generated by resistance to him all set the agenda for modern European history.
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III. The “Restoration” of Europe
A. The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815
Goals of negotiations
Metternich, Castlereagh, and Talleyrand
The settlement
Treaties and legitimacy
III. The “Restoration” of Europe
A. The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815
1. The Congress of Vienna balanced post-Napoleonic Europe by relying on the major powers to cooperate while guaranteeing the status of smaller states.
2. Boundaries were settled by representatives of the five major powers: Austria, Russia, Prussia, Britain, and France. The Congress of Vienna provided a model for the twentieth-century League of Nations and United Nations.
3. The Austrian prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859) took the lead in the negotiations.
4. He worked with the ambitious British statesman Robert Castlereagh (1769–1822) to check French aggression while preserving it as a great power to counter the ambitions of Prussia and Russia.
5. Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838) represented France. After the Hundred Days, France was deprived of all territory conquered since 1790.
6. Where possible, the congress restored traditional rulers.
7. Elsewhere, it rearranged territorial boundaries to balance the competing interests of the great powers; the duchy of Warsaw thus became the kingdom of Poland ruled by the Russian tsar.
8. The Dutch Republic and Austrian Netherlands united as the new kingdom of the Netherlands under the restored stadholder.
9. Austria took charge of the German Confederation, which replaced the Holy Roman Empire.
10. Sardinia was given Piedmont, Genoa, Nice, and part of Savoy.
11. Sweden acquired Norway and accepted Russian control of Finland.
12. The congress also condemned the slave trade in principle but did not ban it.
13. Alexander I of Russia proposed a Holy Alliance to ensure divine assistance in upholding religion, peace, and justice; Prussia and Austria agreed, but Great Britain declined.
14. From that point on, the legitimacy of states depended on a treaty system, not divine right.
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III. The “Restoration” of Europe—cont’d
B. The Emergence of Conservatism
Basis of conservatism
Characteristics and supporters
Louis XVIII and Ultras
III. The “Restoration” of Europe—cont’d
B. The Emergence of Conservatism
1. The French Revolution and Napoleon’s domination of Europe had proved that the old order of society was subject to sudden change and disruption.
2. People needed justification to believe in restored governments, and conservatism provided that justification.
3. Conservatives believed that the Enlightenment had led to the French Revolution, which produced both the Terror and the authoritarian Napoleon.
4. The most influential spokesman of conservatism was Britain’s Edmund Burke (1729–1799), who believed that any change in government should be gradual and must respect national and historical traditions.
5. Conservatives defended hereditary monarchy and the authority of the church, arguing that the “rights of man” must be balanced by the rights of the community, and that faith, sentiment, history, and tradition must fill the vacuum left by the failure of reason and the excessive belief in individual rights.
6. Not surprisingly, conservatism had its strongest appeal in ruling circles: the ascension of Louis XVIII tested conservative beliefs in France.
7. Louis XVIII maintained the Civil Code, guaranteed rights of ownership to church lands sold during the Revolution, and created a parliament based on restricted suffrage.
8. While the king tried to follow a moderate course of compromise, the Ultras (ultraroyalists) pushed for complete repudiation of the revolutionary past.
9. In 1816, the Ultras insisted on abolishing divorce and set up special courts to punish opponents of the regime.
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III. The “Restoration” of Europe—cont’d
C. The Revival of Religion
Catholic revival
Methodism and women
The Second Great Awakening
Missionary activities
III. The “Restoration” of Europe—cont’d
C. The Revival of Religion
1. Once peace returned to Europe, many renewed their religious faith.
2. In France, the Catholic church held ceremonies to express sorrow over the Revolution. The papacy reestablished the Jesuit order, banned during the Enlightenment.
3. Revivalist movements, which had begun in Great Britain and Germany in the eighteenth century, sometimes challenged the status quo.
4. In England, the Methodists, or Wesleyans, attracted thousands of shopkeepers, artisans, agricultural laborers, and workers in cottage industry, often to large-scale revival meetings that went on for days.
5. Although Methodism stressed obedience to the government, the group’s hostility to rigid doctrine and encouragement of popular preaching promoted a sense of democratic community and even a rudimentary sexual equality.
6. Women preachers traveled to sermonize in barns, town halls, and textile dye houses; and Sunday schools taught thousands of poor children to read and write.
7. In the United States, the second Great Awakening began around 1790, bringing together thousands of worshippers in huge camp meetings.
8. Protestant sects began missionary activity in other parts of the world in the late eighteenth century as well.
9. In India, British missionaries succeeded in getting the practice of sati — the burning alive of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands — abolished in 1829.
10. Missionary activity by both Protestants and Catholics would become one of the arms of European imperialism and cultural influence later in the nineteenth century.
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IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order
A. Romanticism
Romantic poetry
Romantic literature
Romantic painting
Romantic music
Romantic nationalism
IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order
A. Romanticism
1. Romanticism was an artistic movement that glorified nature, emotion, genius, and imagination as antidotes to the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and classicism’s emphasis on symmetry and ordered geometric space.
2. Romantic poets such as George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), celebrated emotion and creative imagination.
3. Byron also symbolized romanticism’s idealism when he died fighting for Greek independence from the Turks.
4. William Wordsworth (1770–1850) elevated the wonders of nature to a transcendent height.
5. Mary Shelley (1797–1851) explored the nightmarish side of human genius in Frankenstein (1818).
6. In the same mode as Shelley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) elaborated on the destructive potential of human nature in Faust (1832).
7. In painting, romanticism idealized nature and the individual of deep feelings. It also often expressed anxiety about industrial changes.
8. Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) depicted individual figures overwhelmed by an overpowering nature and the steadfast nature of faith.
9. Joseph M. W. Turner (1775–1851) anticipated later artists by blurring the outlines of objects in his misty seascapes.
10. Like other romantics, French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) experimented with new techniques, emphasizing light and color in medieval and contemporary scenes.
11. The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) helped set the direction for romanticism in music when he transformed the symphony into a connected work with recurring and evolving musical themes, conveying the impression of organic growth.
12. If any common political thread existed among the romantics, it was the support of nationalist aspirations — especially through the search for the historical origins of national identity.
13. In Italy, Manzoni’s The Betrothed, a novel set in the seventeenth century, served as a manifesto of Italian nationalism.
14. The enormously influential novels of the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) were infused with romantic nationalism.
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IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
B. Political Revolts in the 1820s
Uprisings in Spain and Italy
Radical German nationalism
Decembrist Revolt in Russia
IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
B. Political Revolts in the 1820s
1. Those who had hoped for constitutional government after Napoleon’s fall were disappointed.
2. In Spain, Ferdinand VII restored the prerevolutionary nobility, church, and monarchy, and established strict censorship.
3. Members of the middle class, disturbed by repressive policies, and army officers who had encountered and adopted French ideas joined secret societies.
4. A revolt by soldiers demanding that Ferdinand restore the constitution was put down by French troops, acting with the agreement of the other great powers, and Ferdinand’s absolute power was restored.
5. The Spanish revolt encouraged Italian rebellions in Naples, Piedmont, and Sardinia, all squashed by Austria in 1821.
6. Great Britain opposed Austria’s actions, but the other great powers supported them.
7. In the German Confederation, student groups advocated a racially pure German nationalism. The Carlsbad Decrees (1819) suppressed the groups.
8. In Russia, a brief revolt erupted in December 1825 over Alexander I’s successor.
9. His brother Nicholas was to be crowned, but a faction of rebel officers preferred another brother, Constantine, because he would favor reform and a constitution.
10. When the officers called for Constantine to take the throne, soldiers loyal to Nicholas suppressed them in the so-called Decembrist Revolt; the rebels became heroes to later generations.
11. Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) dedicated his reign to preventing any further calls for reform.
12. Serbia revolted and gained independence from the Turks in 1817.
13. Prince Alexander Ypsilanti led a Greek revolt in 1820 but failed because he had not gained support from the great powers.
14. A second Greek revolt, led by peasants, unleashed atrocities in 1821 and 1822; public opinion in Europe supported the Greeks.
15. In 1827, a combined British, French, and Russian force destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino Bay; and in 1828, Russia declared war on Turkey and advanced close to Istanbul.
16. The 1829 Treaty of Adrianople gave Russia a protectorate over the Danubian principalities in the Balkans and provided for an international congress that included Great Britain, Russia, and France.
17. In 1830, Greece was declared an independent kingdom.
18. This successful nationalist struggle was the first breach in Metternich’s conservative system.
19. Revolt spread across the Atlantic, when colonists from Mexico to Argentina took advantage of the upheaval in Spain and Portugal.
20. Leading these revolts was Simón Bolívar, the son of a slave owner, who had been educated in Europe on the works of Voltaire and Rousseau.
21. Independent republics were formed in Latin America between 1821 and 1823.
22. In 1823, U.S. president James Monroe issued the foreign policy statement, the Monroe Doctrine, in opposition to European interference in the Americas. However, the more important decision was that of Great Britain, the dominant naval power, which declared neutrality, in effect supporting the rebels.
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IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
B. Political Revolts in the 1820s—cont’d
– Revolts against the Turks
– Treaty of Adrianople
– Greek independence
– Wars of independence in Latin America
IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
B. Political Revolts in the 1820s—cont’d
1. Those who had hoped for constitutional government after Napoleon’s fall were disappointed.
2. In Spain, Ferdinand VII restored the prerevolutionary nobility, church, and monarchy, and established strict censorship.
3. Members of the middle class, disturbed by repressive policies, and army officers who had encountered and adopted French ideas joined secret societies.
4. A revolt by soldiers demanding that Ferdinand restore the constitution was put down by French troops, acting with the agreement of the other great powers, and Ferdinand’s absolute power was restored.
5. The Spanish revolt encouraged Italian rebellions in Naples, Piedmont, and Sardinia, all squashed by Austria in 1821.
6. Great Britain opposed Austria’s actions, but the other great powers supported them.
7. In the German Confederation, student groups advocated a racially pure German nationalism. The Carlsbad Decrees (1819) suppressed the groups.
8. In Russia, a brief revolt erupted in December 1825 over Alexander I’s successor.
9. His brother Nicholas was to be crowned, but a faction of rebel officers preferred another brother, Constantine, because he would favor reform and a constitution.
10. When the officers called for Constantine to take the throne, soldiers loyal to Nicholas suppressed them in the so-called Decembrist Revolt; the rebels became heroes to later generations.
11. Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) dedicated his reign to preventing any further calls for reform.
12. Serbia revolted and gained independence from the Turks in 1817.
13. Prince Alexander Ypsilanti led a Greek revolt in 1820 but failed because he had not gained support from the great powers.
14. A second Greek revolt, led by peasants, unleashed atrocities in 1821 and 1822; public opinion in Europe supported the Greeks.
15. In 1827, a combined British, French, and Russian force destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino Bay; and in 1828, Russia declared war on Turkey and advanced close to Istanbul.
16. The 1829 Treaty of Adrianople gave Russia a protectorate over the Danubian principalities in the Balkans and provided for an international congress that included Great Britain, Russia, and France.
17. In 1830, Greece was declared an independent kingdom.
18. This successful nationalist struggle was the first breach in Metternich’s conservative system.
19. Revolt spread across the Atlantic, when colonists from Mexico to Argentina took advantage of the upheaval in Spain and Portugal.
20. Leading these revolts was Simón Bolívar, the son of a slave owner, who had been educated in Europe on the works of Voltaire and Rousseau.
21. Independent republics were formed in Latin America between 1821 and 1823.
22. In 1823, U.S. president James Monroe issued the foreign policy statement, the Monroe Doctrine, in opposition to European interference in the Americas. However, the more important decision was that of Great Britain, the dominant naval power, which declared neutrality, in effect supporting the rebels.
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IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
C. Revolution and Reform, 1830–1832
Charles X and revolution in France
Belgian independence from the Dutch
Revolts in Italy and Poland
Six Acts and the Reform Bill in Britain
IV. Challenges to the Conservative Order—cont’d
C. Revolution and Reform, 1830—1832
1. In 1830, a new wave of liberal and nationalist revolts broke out throughout the European continent.
2. In France, Charles X (r. 1824–1830) passed a Law of Indemnity, which compensated those nobles who had lost estates during the Revolution, and a Law of Sacrilege, which imposed the death penalty for offenses such as stealing religious objects from churches.
3. Charles also enraged liberals when he dissolved the legislature, removed many wealthy and powerful voters from the rolls, and imposed strict censorship.
4. A revolution began on July 26, 1830, and, after three days of street fighting and the flight of the king, a group of moderate liberals asked Charles X’s cousin, Louis-Philippe, to take the throne.
5. Although Louis-Philippe extended suffrage, only 170,000 out of a population of 30 million could vote.
6. Expressing their dissatisfaction, the indigent and working classes rebelled in Lyon in 1831, but the revolt was quickly put down.
7. Events in France inspired a revolt in Belgium, which had been annexed to the Netherlands in 1815.
8. At a congress of the great powers, Belgium was granted its independence as a constitutional monarchy in exchange for neutrality in international affairs.
9. Revolts in the Austrian Empire’s Italian territories were also unsuccessful because of a lack of outside support.
10. In November 1830, Poland rebelled against Russia, and Polish aristocrats formed a provisional government.
11. Without support from the British or French, the rebels were defeated by Russian forces.
12. Nicholas I abolished the Polish constitution and ordered thousands of Poles executed or banished.
13. Reform of Parliament rather than revolution preoccupied the British. In August 1819, the government crushed a large demonstration in Manchester and passed the repressive Six Acts, which forbade large political meetings and restricted press criticism.
14. In the 1820s, Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), the secretary for home affairs, revised the criminal code and established a municipal police force.
15. In 1824, laws prohibiting unions were repealed (but the restrictions placed on strikes remained), and in 1829, Catholics were allowed to sit in Parliament and hold most public offices.
16. In 1832, Whigs in Parliament enacted the Reform Bill to extend voting rights.
17. Mass demonstrations in favor of the bill had been held in many cities, but the bill granted the vote to only one-fifth of British voters, and still only male property owners could vote.
18. The bill, however, increased the number of voters by about 50 percent, granted representation to the new industrial centers in the north for the first time, and set a precedent for widening suffrage without revolution.
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