When the year 1848 opened, signific ant sections of the populations of all the
continental countries lying between the English Channel and the b orders of
Russia had reasons for dissatisfaction with their governments. With varying
degrees of intensity, the middle classes desired either to acquire civil and political
rights denie d them or to extend rights already acquired; and, in Germany and
Italy, these desires were accomp anied by a growing fervor for national unity
and independence. The vanguard of the middle class reform movement were
merchants and industrialists, professors and j o urnalists, lawyers and intellectuals
and university stl\dents, all of whom had become alienated from governments
that were wedded t o the status quo and showed no sympathy for their ideas.
At the same time, the mass of the ordinary people of most countries was
suffering from economic distress. The period since 1815 had been one of great
industrial exp ansion, but it had been accomp anied by the ills attendant upon
the replacement of the old handicraft system by new meth o ds of production
and also by periodic dislo cations caused by overexp ansion and unwise speculation.
After the prosp erity of the e arly forties, for instance, the seap orts and
industrial towns of Europe suffered from the repercussions of a sudden and
severe economic crash in England, and the subsequent forced retrenchment hurt
the old guild trades more severely than it did factory industry and threw thousands
of artisans and j ourneymen out of work. Simultaneously, the failure of
the p otato crop in 1845 and of both the p otato and grain crops in 1846 was
felt in all countries from Ireland to Poland and w as reflecte d in a sharp rise
in the cost of food-an increase that, in the German states, averaged 50 percent

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in p olitical attitude but predominantly conservative in social philosophy. The
election results were received with suspicion on the p art of the w orking classes
of P aris and with indignation by the radical clubs of the city, where men like
Blanqui were agitating for a more thoroughgoing reform than that carried out
so far by Lamartine and his colleagues. It was clear that new disorders were
imminent.
The Revolution in the Austrian Empire While these events were t aking
place, other p arts of the continent were in the throes of revolution. Even before
the February rising in Paris, a revolt in P alermo in Sicily had forced the reactionary
King Ferdinand II of Naples to grant a constitution to his people. This
rising was largely the result of Sicilian p articularism and w ould prob ably, by
itself, have had no further consequences. What started the revolutionary tide
rolling in central Europe was the news of Louis Philippe's expulsion from the
throne of France , and before long the exiled monarch was saying with dour
satisfaction, "Europe is giving me splendid obsequies."

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The news of this event reache d the city of Vienna on February 29 and aroused
great excitement, which increased as word came of demonstrations in Stuttgart,
Mannheim , and other German citie s . Crowds began to gather in the cafes of the
Austrian capital to hear the latest news fro m abro ad; nervousness led to a run
on the b anks; food prices began to rise steeply; and, as they did, criticism of
the government became vocal. Then, on March 3 , came reports of a speech
delivered in Budapest by Kossuth (see p. 54) , in which that gifted agitator had
denounced the abuses of the absolutist system and called for the immediate
introduction of constitutional government in Hungary. This would be impossible,
Kossuth admitted, as long as " a corrupting puff of wind that benumbs our senses
and p ar alyzes the flight of our spirit comes to us from the charnel house of
the cabinet in Vienna"; therefore, b asic reform must be introduced in every
branch of the imperial government. Translate d immediately into German, this
speech was circulate d in thousands of cop ies in the western half of the emp ire ,
where its very violence appealed to the middle class businessmen who felt
handicapped by the economic backwardness of the government, the artisans
who-despite their lack of employment-had to p ay a sales tax on the necessities
of life , the peasants who were still bound by the feudal restrictions of an outworn
agricultural system, and the intellectuals who had long chafe d at p olice supervision
of all literary and artistic activity. Petitions began to circulate demanding
a dministrative changes, enlargement of the system of estates and immediate
convocation of a diet, ab olition of censorship , and e conomic reform.
In face of this ground swell of opposition, the government in Vienna showed
a remarkable lack of imagination, rej e cting all petitions and refusing all concessions.
This standp at attitude proved to b e the immediate c ause of an all-out
revolution against the regime. On March 1 3 demonstrations began among the
students of the university, a group made rebellious by the ir long experience of
uninspired instruction, p olice despotism, and unmentionable living conditions.
A throng marched to the L a n dh a us, where the Estates of Lower Austria were
meeting and, after some preliminary harangues, stormed the building. By midafternoon
fighting had started in the inner city between detachments of the
local garrison and the students, who had now been j o ined by workingmen from
the suburbs.
The first reaction of the court was stupefaction; and the Emperor Ferdinand
is report e d to have gasped, when news of the fighting arrive d, "/a, d erfn s 'denn
d a s ? " ("But are they allow e d to do that? "). As the situation deteriorated , this
mood was replaced by one of p anic; and, at nine in the evening, fearing that the
mob might actually break into the imperial palace, the royal family abandoned
Metternich as abruptly as Louis Philippe had dropped Guizot, announcing that
the man who had held office uninterruptedly for thirty-nine ye ars had resigned.
Metternich, who had argued vigorously that capitulation of this kind might b e
fatal to t h e monarchy, accepted his fate philosophically a n d made a dignified
departure to London, the end station for all dismisse d monarchs and oligarchs,
le aving b ehind him a Vienna enrapture d by the thought that the very symbol
of despotism had been overthrown.
If Kossuth's speech had played an important p art in precipitating these events
in Vienna, the fall of the chancellor now gave new impetus t o the revolutionary

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currents running in Hungary. On March 1 5 , the Hungarian D iet gave a precise
and dramatic formulation t o ambitions held by Magyar p atriots for a generation.
It promulgated a new Hungarian constitution, which provided for a national
diet to be elected by all Hungarians owning property worth one hundre d and
fifty dollars, established civil and religious liberty for all subjects and freedom
for the press, and abolished the traditional privileges of the feudal nobility.
Hungary was to remain within the empire but to h ave its own ministries of war,
finance, and foreign affairs ; and, to all intents and purp oses, the Hungarians
would henceforth enj oy complete autonomy.
On March 3 1 , the government in Vienna was forced to agree to these sweeping
reforms, which had been gained without loss of blood or even the exertion
of physical force.
Where the Hungarians led, the leaders of the Czech national movement followed.
In March they sent deputations to Vienna to demand the convo cation of
a B ohemian diet elected by democratic franchise , b asic civil and religious freedoms,
and, especially, the equality of the Czech and German languages in
schools and government services. On April 8 the emperor granted most of these
demands, thus giving B ohemia the same degree of local autonomy as that already
won by Hungary.
It is said of Emperor Ferdinand that, on one occasion when his doctor forbade
him certain foods because "Your Maj esty's constitution will not tolerate them, "
he said firmly, "1 h o b h al t ka Konstitution u n d i m ag h al t k a Konstitution!'"
Yet he was now compelled not only to accept the Hungarian and Czech demands
but to repudiate his principles in Austria proper, by consenting to the formation
of a National Guard, which was to include a sep arate Academic Legion of
students , and by summoning a united diet for the purpose of drawing up a new
constitution-because he had no armed force c ap able of controlling the situation.
This weakness was caused by the development of affairs in the Austrian
provinces of Italy. In a violent insurrection that lasted for five days, the city of
Milan arose and expelle d the Austrian troops; and on March 22, D aniele Manin,
a lawyer and p olitician of Jewish heritage, led a swift and entirely successful
revolt in Venice and proclaimed the republic. Taking advantage of this situation,
Charles Albert of Piedmont, an ambitious if emotionally unb alanced ruler,
threw in his lot with the rebels of Lombardy and Venetia and sent his armies
to help them forge Italian freedom. These sudden blows sent the Austrian forces
commanded by Radetzky reeling b ack into the so- called Quadrilateral, four
strong fortresses on the Adige and Mincio. The e ighty-two-year-old field marshal,
who, desp ite his years, had lost neither his interest in women nor his vigor
in war, was not alarmed by these setb acks; but he saw that, unless put right,
they might lead to the total collapse of the Hapsburg Empire. He insisted, therefore
, that-even at the cost of temp orary concessions at home-reinforcements
be sent to him, and he had his way.
This meant, however, that the emperor had to accept the reforms in Hungary
and B ohemia, and, in Austria itself, t o dismiss other unp opular ministers (like
the p olice chief S edlnitzky) and to agree to a whole series of further reforms.
2 " I have no constitution and I don't want a constitution ! "

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These included a reduction of the sales tax on food, the ab olition of the censorship
, and a general p olitical amnesty; but the most notable of them was the
imperial manifesto of April 11, which promised to free the peasants from all
services and duties incumbent on the land. This new freedom was to be inaugurated
on J anuary 1, 1849, after the D iet had framed the necessary legislation,
but it could be effe cted e arlier by private arrangement, provided proprietors
receive d suitable compensation.
The April decree was probably the most important p ositive action of the
whole Austrian revolution, and, even before it was confirmed by the Austrian
p arliament in September, it was exercising a moderating influence upon the
course of events. It was greeted with enthusiasm by the p e asants and had the
almost imme diate effect o f transforming them into a conservative force, more
interested in law and order than in revolutionary agitation. As in France, the
p easantry now grew critical of continued disorders in the c apital. Their attitude
was shared by the wealthier middle class in Vienna, who were s atisfied with
the gains already made and were increasingly fearful of the excesses of the
students and the workers, and by some of the intellectuals . Austria's greatest
novelist in this p eriod, Adalbert Stifter, wrote gloomily during 1848: " G o d grant
that people begin to see that only good sense and moderation can lead to constructive
work. What we h ave to do is to build, not j ust to tear down. I am a
man of moderation a n d of free dom, but both are now unfortunately j eop ardized
. . . . "
Thus, as e arly as April, the unity of the revolutionary movement was beginning
to split. Nor was this caused only by e conomic and social differences.
Nationality also played a p art, as Austrian Germans c ame to resent the g ains
made by the Czechs and Hungarians, and Magyars to fear the growing ambitions
of their Slav neighbors, who aspired to the same kind of privileges won by
the followers of Kossuth. The imperial house, still imp otent in April and May,
w as going to win its ultimate victory over the revolution by explo iting those
widening social and national divisions.
The Revolution in Prussia and the German States The Russian exile Alexander
Herzen, who made a lifetime career of revolutionary agitation, w as b itterly
scornful of the risings in Germany in 1848. The Germans were not, he wrote
in his memoirs, serious about revolution at all; they were merely enj oying themselves
by imitating France in the days of the Terror.
There w as not a town . . . where . . . there was not an attempt at a "committee
of public s afety" with all its principal characters: with a frigid
youth as Saint-Just, with gloomy terrorists, and a military genius representing
Carnot. I knew two or three Robespierres p ersonally; they always
put on clean shirts, w ashe d their hands and had clean nails . . . . If there
happened to b e a man . . . fonder of beer than the rest and more openly
given to dangling after Stu benm a dchen-he was the D anton.
This was written after the collapse of the revolution and reflects the b itterness
induced by that failure (if not by the a dditional fact that, in his retreat in

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The Prussian army had not been engaged in b attle since Waterloo, and it had
never fought in cobbled streets against adversaries who snip e d from ro oftops
or dropped chimney p ots or boiling water from attic windows. When it took
a b arricade by frontal assault, it was apt to find that its defenders had escaped
down side lanes or through corner houses, and new b arricades were constantly
springing up b ehind it. It w as discouraging work; by nightfall the troops were
spent; by morning they were demoralized, and their commander was urging the
king to authorize their withdrawal from the city so that they could encircle and
bombard it fr.om outside. The king was aghast at the idea of his city being
levele d by artillery and rej ected the idea. But he ordered the troops to leave
B erlin, although refusing to go with them, preferring to put his trust in his
" d e ar Berliners. "
This w a s a gallant action and, from the long-range p oint of view, prob ably a
wise one, but for the time being it left Frederick William a captive of the revolution-
a "king of the p avement , " as the tsar of Russia said s avagely at this time.
Like his brother sovereigns in Vienna and the lesser German c apitals, he had to
c all liberal business and professional men to office and to promise speedy convocation
of a National Prussian Assembly. Later in his life , he was ashamed
of the speed with which his regime had capitulated, and said ruefully, "At that
time we were all on our b ellies. "
The Frankfurt Parliament The events in Prussia seemed to complete and
make definitive the collapse of absolutism; and the time app e ared to have come
now to exploit this opp ortunity to satisfy the yearnings of generations of Germans
and to transform the rickety old Germanic Confe deration into an effective
organiz ation of national unity. Since the first days of March, leaders of the constitutional
movement in southern Germany had been consulting among themselves
about the t asks of national reconstruction. At the end of the month, they
j oined with liberal leaders from other states to draw up a tentative program of
action and persuaded the D iet to invite the governments of all German states,
including Austria and Prussia, to elect delegates to a National Parliament that
would then proceed to transform Germany into a federal union with a liberal
constitution. The individual states, now under liberal ministries, accepted the
invitations; elections were held in the course of April; and on May 18, the first
National P arliament in German history was solemnly convened in St. Paul's
Church in Frankfurt on the Main.
The Frankfurt p arliament has often been described as a gathering of impractical
intellectuals who debated theoretical questions to the exclusion of the
issues that demanded immediate attention. It is true that the percentage of highly
educated people among its members was very large; out of a total of 586 members
there were 95 lawyers, 104 professors, 124 bureaucrats, and 100 j u dicial
officials. Moreover, from May until December, they did spend a lot of time talking
about abstract questions, for this was the p eriod in which they drafted the Fundamental
Rights of the German People. Yet surely, after a p ast of unrelieved
absolutism, it w as imp ortant to have such things clearly defined. When it was
completed , the Declaration of Fundamental Rights was an eloquent expression
of middle-class liberal philosophy, which established freedom of speech and

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religion and equality before the law as b asic rights of all Germans, asserted the
s anctity of private property, and laid down rules for representative government
and ministerial responsibility in the individual states.
It was hoped that this constitution would be put into effect in a Germany that
was a federal union, presided over by a hereditary emperor, but with a strong
p arliament representing the educated and propertied classes and a ministry that
w as responsible to it. The exact comp osition of the empire and the role of
Austria in it was the subj ect of long debate between two schools of thought.
The Great German (GroBdeuts ch) p arty believed that the empire must embrace
all German states, including the German provinces of Austria, a solution
that implied that there would be a Hapsburg emperor; whereas the Small
German (Klein deu tsch) p arty insisted that all of Austria must be excluded.
Eventually, the majority agreed on the latter solution, while advo cating a close
future connection between the new Germany and the Hapsburg realm; and they
concluded also-as we shall see-that the king of Prussia must be invited to
preside over the new German Reich.
B efore the time-consuming debates on these matters were finished, events had
t aken a turn that made it unlikely that the conclusions reached in them would
b e accepted by the German states. This w as not, as is sometimes argued, the
fault of the longwindedness of the Frankfurt p arliamentarians. C onsidering the
complicated issues with which they had t o deal, they did their j ob with disp
atch. But, while their deliberations continued, the unity of purp ose that had
made the M arch revolution successful b egan to break down, and suspicion and
ill feeling began to arise among the different classes and nationalities. The forces
of reaction now showed an ability to exploit these divisions in such a w ay as to
nullify the work accomplished at Frankfurt and the gains of the revolution in
general.
It was not only in Germany that this reaction occurred. Like the revolution, it
was European in scope; and, like the revolution, it had its first significant success
in France.
THE FAIL URE OF THE REVOL U TION
The June D ays in France The maj ority of the members of the newly elected
French N ational Assembly came to P aris at the b eginning of May 1848 with a
strong desire to prevent new revolutionary experiments or disorders. They revealed
the nature of their thinking by refusing to give Lamartine 's ministry a
vote of confidence until he had droppe d from it not only the workingman Albert
but also Louis Blanc, who was distrusted in the provinces because of his socialist
views. Their attitude hardened when an excited mob broke into the Assembly on
May 15, in a p ointless demonstration which working class leaders like Blanqui
had vainly sought to stop because they feared it would invite reprisals. It did
exactly that, by encouraging the Assembly to strike out at what they considered
the root of all the disorder in P aris, the national workshops.
On May 24, an executive commission of the Assembly ordered Emile Thomas
t o begin the dissolution of the workshops by enlisting its younger members in
the army, p aying its rural members to return to their homes, and forcing others

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Once more secure in his p ower, the Prussian king turned the offer aside with
contumely. He may h ave been influenced by the knowledge that to accept a
crown that had been worn by the Hapsburgs would be to invite certain Austrian
hostility. He may also have been alienated by claims by Frankfurt p arliament
arians that, in their new Reich, Prussia would lose its separate identity and be
"merged" with the rest of Germany; and it is not unlikely that he had dreams of
Prussia's uniting Germany by conquest. However that may be, in public he
argued that a Prussian king could not t ake a crown from the hands of intellectuals
and tradesmen who claimed to b e representatives of the people. "If the
thousand-year-old crown of the German nation, in abeyance now these forty-two
years,' is again to be given away , " he s aid proudly, " it is I and my likes who will
give it. " He was deaf to all appe als made by the delegation, whose members had
to return dej ectedly to Frankfurt.
The disappointing news they took with them had the effect of dividing the
Frankfurt p arliament hopelessly into factions. While some o f the delegates, in
discouragement, wanted to give up the fight for unity and freedom, and others
hoped, by diplomacy and p atience, to persuade the Prussian ruler to change his
mind, a group of extremists advocated resort to armed insurrection as the most
effective way of gaining the p arliament's objectives. These hotheads were encouraged
by the effect of the king's refusal throughout Germany, and especially
in S axony, the Rhine P alatinate, and B aden, where outbreaks of mob violence
p aralyzed government and seemed to presage a new wave of revolutionary
action.
But Frederick William IV, having restored order in his own realm, was in no
mood to tolerate agitation in the territory of his neighbors. In May 1849, Prussian
troops were disp atched t o Dresden where they suppressed the rebellion and
restored the King of S axony to his throne. The troubles in B aden and the Palatinate
were more serious, for a revolutionary army of thirty to forty thousand men
had been raised under the command of the Polish refugee Mieroslawski and an
exotic group of p oets, publicists, professional revolutionaries, and foreign adventurers.
Before this "people's army" was routed and order restored, two Prussian
army corps , under the command of the king's brother, the future king-emperor
William I, had to be put into the field, and the fortress of Rastadt had to be bomb
arded into submission. L ater g.enerations of Germans were to recall this fighting
with pride-as did the first president pf the Federal Republic of Germany,
Theo dor Heuss, whose grandfather led a comp any of volunteers against the
Prussians-and to argue that it proved" that a genuine democratic spirit was
strong in 1849, especially in southern Germany. In its own time , it is likely that
the rising in B aden further alarmed middle class opinion and made it welcome
b oth the Prussian victory and, a few months later, the dissolution of the Frankfurt
p arliament which that victory made inevitable.
Even after the failure o f the Frankfurt p arliament, the desire for unific ation
o f the long-fragmented German lands was still strong enough t o p ersuade the
king of Prussia t o try, in his own way, to make some progress toward that goal.
His scheme, which was devised under the influence of Josef Maria von Radowitz,
'That is, since Napoleon Bonaparte had abolished the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.

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a C atholic nobleman who had b e come the king's closest confidant, called for
an agreement by the German princes to j o in their territories in a union that
would be led by Prussia and would exclude Austria, although, for purp oses
o f foreign and economic affairs, it would be b ound in p erpetual alliance with
the Hapsburg state. This was obviously a plan that could be effected, if at all,
only by lengthy and laborious negotiations; and such negotiations did, indeed,
fill the rest of 1849 and the first months of the new year. But these consultations
never gave much re ality to the Pruss ian union; and, before it was much more
than an idea, the Austrians completed their re covery from the revolution and
intervene d to break up Fre derick William's amb itious plans.
The Recovery of Austria The Austrian crown took longer than e ither the
French or the Prussians to put its house in order because it could not concentrate
upon the situation in the imperial capital but had to think also of the revolutionary
movements that had taken place in B ohemia, Hungary, and Italy. Yet
it did master the situation in time, thanks to the so cial and national prejudices
that came to divide the rebels and the vigor of the Austrian army and its commanders
Radetzky, Windischgriitz, and Jellachich.
The tide b egan to turn in June 1848 in B ohemia, where the German and Czech
wings of the revolutionary movement had become hopelessly estranged after
their common victory in March. Led by men like Frantisek Palacky (1798-1876) ,
the author of the gre at History of the Czech People (1836-1848), the Czechs had
begun to dream of a nation of their own. They opposed sending a delegation
t o the Frankfurt Assembly and took a leading p art in the calling of a P an-Slav
C ongress, which met in Prague early in June , and which issued a ringing call
for the conversion of the Hapsburg empire into "a federation of nations all
enj oying equal rights." This inflamed the feelings of the German p opulation;
brawling b etween Czechs and Germans led to more serious disorders; and, by
mid-June , b arricades were b eing built and mobs of Czech students were marching
through the streets , smashing store fronts as they searched for arms. This violence,
engendered by nationalistic p assions, had a bloody sequel, for- after some days
of negotiation for the purp ose of restoring order-the imperial military commandant
of Prague, General Windischgriitz, withdrew his tro op s from the city and
then proceeded to b ombard it with artillery with a ruthlessness that was p erhaps
influenced by the fact that his w ife had been fatally wounded by a stray bullet
a few days before. Helpless before this kind of force, the Czech students capitulated
on June 17; the p olitical liberties won in March were abrogated; and supp
orters o f royal authority all over the empire had reason to feel that the situation
was not as hopeless as it had seemed e arlier.
This feeling was strengthened by events in Italy. In the first victories against
the Austrians, the rebels of Lomb ardy had been supported by the army of the
king of Piedmont and by detachments fro m Rome, Tuscany, and Naples. But
by the middle of the year these last units were recalled t o deal with troubles
in their own states; and a waning of enthusiasm had begun t o affect the Piedmontese
and the Lomb ards. It was in these circumstances that Radetzky emerged
from the Quadrilateral and overwhelmed the Piedmontese at Custoza on July
24. Within two weeks Lomb ardy had been rewon. The restoration of order in

138

Tuscany had to wait until the spring of 1849 (as did that in Rome, where French
troops put down a republic and restored p ap al authority in June) ; and Radetzky
was not able to subdue Venice until August 1849.' But Custoza was, in a sense,
a promise that those things were coming. Thousands of p e ople now quoted
Grillparzer's ode to Radetzky:
Gluck auf, mein Feldherr, fuhre den S treich!
Nicht bl oB urn des R uhmes S chimmer,
In deinem L ager ist Oesterreich,
Wir an dern sind einzelne Trummer.
Aus Th orh e i t und aus E i telkeit
S i n d wir in uns zerfallen;
In denen, die d u fuhrst zum S treit,
Lebt n o ch Ein Geist in Allen.'
The Italian victories produced a degree of enthusiasm for army and emperor
that b o ded ill for the cause of revolution.
The next victory was in Vienna itself, although it was made possible by the
course of events in Hungary. In that country, the victory won for autonomy
by the Magyars in March was now challenged by the non-Magyar elements-
notably the Croats, the Serbs, and the Rumanians, who demanded re cognition
of their sep arate identity and their right to conduct their affairs in their
own language and under leaders of their own choice. These demands the Magyars,
intent on a policy of centralization and cultural uniformity, refused; and this
uncompromising attitude led t o an explosion of indignation on the p art of the
other national groups . The Vienna government aggravated these p assions by
appointing an inveterate anti-Magyar, Colonel Jellachich, as governor of Croatia,
from which position he did everything possible to defy the Magyar authorities.
Jellachich's policy culminated finally in open revolution against the Hungarian
government, an action that in its turn brought the radical anti- Slav, anti-Austrian
p arty of Kossuth to power in Budapest and made any political compromise imp
ossible. That the Austrian crown welcomed this situation was indicated by the
alacrity with which the emperor now dissolved the Hungarian Diet and gave
Jellachich command of all imperial forces in Hungary.
These provocative actions were almost disastrous, for they inspired a w ave
o f sympathy for the Magyars that touched off a new and bloody rising in Vienna,
during which the minister of war, C ount Latour, was murdered by the mob.
Powerless to p reserve order, the court and the government fled the city on
October 7, leaving it in the hands of the students, the artisans and shopkeepers,
and the proletarian masses. It was, however, a rising doomed to failure ; for
' For a fuller account of events in Italy in 1848-1849, see pages 190-192.
5 H ere 's to my general! Now strike home ; / Not only fame for thy fee! / Thy c amp encloses
Austria, / Her separate members are we. / By foolishness and vanity / C ame our collapse
and fall. / But when thou leadest men to war / The old fire glows in all.

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its leaders were bereft of political talent and their violence alienated not only
the bulk of the middle class but also the peasants, who refused to give any
supp ort to the rebels in the c ap ital, arrested emissaries sent out to app e al t o
them, a n d t o o k advantage o f t h e plight of the democrats i n Vienna to exact
exorbitant prices for the foo d they supplie d. Meanwhile, the government showed
that it had not forgotten the lesson of Prague. On O ctober 15, at Olmiitz, the
emperor gave full powers to Windischgratz to end "the reign of terror" in Vienna;
on October 23, the "bombardment prince , " as he was called by the Viennese
democrats, gave the city forty-eight hours to surrender; on O ctober 28, after
an artillery barrage, his troops began the assault on the city. Recognizing his
debt to the Viennese rebels, Kossuth sent a Hungarian force of 25 ,000 men to
their aid, but they were beaten off by Jellachich's Cro ats on O ctober 30. Windischgratz
overcame the resistance of the last extremists on the following day
and imposed martial law over the city.
The capture of the capital brought a significant change in the government.
E arlier in the month, Windischgratz 's brother-in-law, Prince Felix S chwarzenberg
(1800-1852) had been authorized to form a government. He did so now, filling
it with men who , like himself, were opposed to all reforms except those granted
from above and wh ose first objective was the restoration of the imp erial power.
At the beginning of D ecember, they persuaded the foolish and ineffective sovereign
Ferdinand to abdicate in favor of his nephew Francis Joseph. This eighteenyear-
old boy, who accepted his office with the rueful words "Farewell youth ! "
had a strong sense of responsibility and a willingness to work hard; b u t the
circumstances of his accession to the throne and the tutelage of S chwarzenberg
prejudiced him against the desires of his subject nationalities and the very idea
of liberal reform, gave him an exaggerated regard for his own prerogatives, and
induced in him an excessive reliance upon soldiers and bure aucrats. This w as
h ardly the b est prep aration for a reign that was to last until 1916.
The eyes of the new emperor and his ministers turned naturally, in the first
months of their p ower, to the situation in Hungary. Not for a moment did they
contemplate a compromise with the Magyars. The concessions that had been
made to them in March by Ferdinand were now abrogated, and war was declared.
It was not a glorious war for the Austrians, whose commanders showed greater
success against open cities and peasant villages than against the Hungarian forces.
These last had been molded into a spirited and effective army by Arthur Gorgey.
an almost unknown officer who had so distinguished himself in fighting against
Jellachich's Croats that Kossuth had made him a general. In the first months of
1849, in an astonishing series of victories, Gorgey drove the Austrian forces of
Windischgratz b ack to the frontiers of their own country. Inspire d by these
victories, the Hungarian Diet formally declared its indep endence of Austria, and
Kossuth became the president of the new state.
But Francis Joseph and S chwarzenberg were willing to go to any length to
suppress the rebels. They appealed now to the tsar of Russia for aid, and Nicholas,
who prided himself on being the archfoe of revolution, responded by sending
140,000 troops against the Hungarians . Even Gorgey's undoubted strategical gifts
were not enough to overcome this addition to his enemy's strength; and on August
1 3 , at Vilagos, his armies surrendered to the Russians. Kossuth and his cabinet

140

fled, with several thousand sol diers, to Turkish soil, thus avoiding the fate of
many of their companions, who died in the wave of hangings, shootings, and
public floggings with which the Austrians celebrated their victory, to the accomp
animent of shocked protests from the British and American governments and
even the Russian field commanders.
S chwarzenberg, the real director of Austrian p olicy in these years, was imper-
- vious to these complaints . A cold and ruthless nature, scornful of the ide alism
that had motivate d many of the forty-eighters, regarding power as the only thing
that deserved respect, provided it was energetically employed ("B ayonets" he
had warned Francis Joseph, " are goo d for everything except sitting upon"), he
was determined to show the world that Austria's re covery from the revolution
was complete. S imultaneously with the destruction of Hungarian liberties, Radetzky's
armies had completed the reconquest of northern Italy. The only remaining
threat to Austria's position was in the German states, which Frederick
William IV had been seeking to form into a union under Pruss ian leadership .
S chwarzenberg was now prepared to deal with that.
S ince the middle of 1849, he had done everything p ossible to sabotage Pruss ian
efforts by diplomatic means. Now, he resorted to menaces, and, in the course
of 1850, made it clear to the Prussians that they would have to choose between
ab andonment of their project and war. As tension mounted between the two
great German p owers and Austrian troops were put in readiness. Pruss ian
conservatives urged their king to give in, arguing that Russia would certainly
support Austria and that the resultant conflict would help no one but the advocates
of revolution. The king's friend Radowitz and his brother Prince William
pleaded that Prussian honor forb ade cap itulation, but they were overb orne. In
November 1850, at Olmiitz, Prussian ministers signed a convention-later called
"the humiliation of Olmiitz" by nationalists-by which they gave up the king's
plan for the reorganization of Germany and agree d to the re-establishment of
the old German C onfederation, which had been superseded by the Frankfurt
p arliament two years before.
This action complete d Austria's recovery from the revolution that had come
upon her in March 1848. While S chwarzenberg had been dealing with the Hungarian,
Italian, and Prussian challenges t o imperial authority, he had summarily
disposed of one other source of irritation. This was the Austrian Constitutional
Assembly, which was first elected in 1848 and, after the rising in Vienna in
O ctober, had removed to Kremsier in B ohemia, where its members had been
p atiently w orking on a constitution for the whole empire. At the beginning of
1849, they had actually put the finishing touches t o a document that later generations
of Austrians were t o feel might have spared the empire many troubles.
For the so-calle d Kremsier constitution sought to solve the nationalities problem
by providing for extensive provincial autonomy, while at the same time granting
local self-government to towns and villages, so that a German village in B ohemia,
for example, would be assured of minority rights. This was certainly a more
rational arrangement than any tried in the subsequent p eriod; but S chwarzenberg,
who was opposed to decentralization of any kind, would have none of it. In
March 1849, he confiscated all copies of the draft c onstitution and dissolved
the Assembly. Some time later the emperor himself grante d a charter to his

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subjects, which had none of the liberal fe atures of the Kremsier constitution
and was in any case abrogated in 1852.
CONCL U SION
By 1850, the fires of revolution had burned themselves out, and the victories
of March 1848 seemed a remote and unreal memory. After all the rhetoric and
the resolutions and the bravery on the b arricades and in the field, the continent
of Europe seemed to be, on the whole, unchanged. The attempt to liberalize
and federalize the Hapsburg empire had failed as ignominiously as the movement
t o unify Germany; b oth Kremsier and Frankfurt were might-have-beens. The
Bourbons were b ack in Naples and the pope was back in Rome. Austria was
supreme in northern Italy; her influence in Germany was restored; and, if her
serfs had been freed, her other subj ects had not. The governmental methods
of the Hapsburg state were still as autocratic as those of Russia, and this could
almost be said of Prussia too, for despite their new constitutional system, the
Prussians returned after Olmutz to their old association with the E astern Powers
and aped their ways. The only nation whose governmental structure had undergone
marked change was France, but there was little reason in 1850 to put much
faith in the durability of her republican institutions in view of the tactics of
her president.
The psychological effects of the collapse of all the high hopes of March were
profound and affected every aspect of European thought and activity after 1850.
This was most immediately evident in the field of foreign affairs, where the
principles and the t actics of those who guided the fortunes of the Great P owers
were determined by their memory of the revolutions and where the nature of
their obj ectives soon destroye d the Europ e an system that still seemed intact
in 1850. These psychological and diplomatic effects of the revolutionary years
are the subject of the p ages that follow.

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Chapter 6 THE BREAKDOWN
OF THE CONCERT AND
THE CRIMEAN WAR
THE WEAKENING OF THE CONCERT OF EUROPE
The Revolutionary Period One of the most remarkable aspects of the revolutions
of 1848 was the fact that the disorders they caused precip itated no war
b etween major p owers. That no great state was led by ambition or fear to take
action that invited retaliation by another was a tribute in the first place to the
habits of cooperation and restraint that had grown up between the p owers in
the years since 1815. But the m aintenance of international peace during these
difficult times was due also to the c areful diplomacy of the two p owers not
affected by revolution at home, Great Britain and Russia.
At the very b eginning of the disorders in Vienna and Berlin, Tsar Nicholas
had written to the British queen and urged that an intimate union between their
countries would be advisable if general disaster was to be averted; and, although
Lord P almerston w as not willing to admit the necessity of a formal tie between
the two countries , he wrote: " Our feelings and sentiments towards Russia are
exactly similar to those [they express] towards England. We are at present the
only two Powers in Europe . . . that remain standing upright, and we ought to
look with confidence to e ach other. " The b asis of this mutual confidence was
the desire of the two countries to prevent local disorders from leading to anything
that might upset the arrangements of 1815; and, while it c annot be said that
they worked together intimately in averting such situations, at least they understood
and trusted e ach other's intentions and exercised mutual forbearance as
they took the action they considere d necessary.
The British were primarily concerned, at the b eginning of the revolutionary
disturbances, with two p ossibilities: namely, that the French republicans might

153

be inspired by the traditions of 1792 to attempt to supp ort the cause of revolution
in Italy; and that the Pruss ian lib erals, flushed with their initial victory in Berlin,
might seek to liberate Poland, deliberately courting a war with Russia in order
to arouse national sentiment and h asten the unification of Germany. In March
1848 the latter scheme was within the realm of practical politics, and Prussian
envoys were actually seeking French supp ort for a blow in b ehalf of the Poles.
Nothing came of this, prob ably b ecause of a stern disp atch from Lord Palmerston
to the Prussian government, urging it "to abstain from any proceeding which
could be considered by Russia as aggressive " -a warning that stiffened Frederick
William IV's resistance to his ministel1s ' designs and doubtless had a restraining
effect in Paris also.
The danger of large-scale French intervention in Italy, either in 1848 or in
1849, was also averted in large p art by Palmerston's diplomacy. In the first phase
of the Italian disorders, when Radetzky lost Venetia and Lomb ardy, the British
foreign secretary sought to remove the temptation to intervene by p ersuading
the Austrians to acquiesce in the loss of those provinces. When the Austrians
refused, and when the tide turned in their favor with their victories over the
Piedmontese at Custoza in July 1848, and at Novara when the war was renewed
in the spring of 1849, P almerston restrained the French by the simple expe dient
of asking them to associate with him in urging the Austrians to show a decent
leniency toward their rebellious subjects. Although the Fre.nch came dangerously
close to intervening by force of arIl).s in supp ort of Piedmont, theY]lever quite
did s o ; and major war w as avoided in the Italian p eninsula.'
In pursuing his p olicy, Palmerston was concerned solely with the requirements
of the b alance of p ower and had scant regard for t4e aspirations of Italian
nationalists. This was true also of his attitude in Hungarian affairs , where, despite
his private sympathies for the rebels, he took the line that he had "no knowledge
of Hungary except as one of the component p arts of the Austrian Empire. " He
rej ected all the requests for aid that came to him from Kossuth's supporters;
and when the Russians intervened to suppress the Hungarian revolution, he told
the Russian ambassador that he approved of the step but hoped they would
"finish as quickly as p ossible. " With this encouragement, the tsar assumed the
role of guardian of the b alance of power in eastern and central Europ e , a p art
he also played, as we have seen (see p. 141), by assuming a threatening p osition
behind the scenes in the days when the Austro-Prussian conflict came to a head
in 1850. One of the most imp ortant causes of Frederick William's collapse b efore
Olmutz and his willingness to give up his cherished plan of Pruss ian union w as
a blunt w arning from the tsar that he would consider changes in European treaties
that were made without the approval of the co-signatories as acts of aggression.
The British playe d no p art in that affair, although they doubtless approved
of the Russian attitude. C ertainly they copied it in their intervention in one
final dispute during the revolutionary years. This w as the situation created by
the revolt of the duchies of S chleswig and Holstein against the D anish crown,
1 The French did intervene in Rome in 1849 on behalf of the papacy and suppressed the
republic. But this was the kind of intervention of which the Austrians would approve. See
Chapters 7 and 8.

154

and the intervention of tro ops from Prussia and the German states in their behalf.
With the tacit supp ort of the Russians, P almerston sought to have the status
quo restore d, lest the b alance in the B altic S e a be disturbe d and friction created
between Russia and Prussia; and, after two years of effort , he succeeded in
arranging a settlement in that sense, which, in 1852, was approved by all the
Great Powers sitting in concert.
If the revolutions of 1848 did not lead to international w ar, it was largely
because the efforts of Britain and Russia and the acquiescence of the other p owers
maintained the diplomatic principles of the previous period.
After the Revolution But those principles were not to remain unchallenged
much longer, nor w as the territorial settlement they protected. As has been
indic ated above, the revolutions had the effect of shaking the validity of all
of the values of the p ast, and this was as true in the field of diplomacy as
in any other.
For one thing, the revolutions marked the entrance into p olitics of a generation
of European statesmen who were much less responsive to arguments in favor
of restraint and compromise than their predecessors and who were more ruthless
in their methods. If the new diplomatic style was create d by S chwarzenberg,
with his preference for solutions by force and his contemptuous disregard for
the rules of private morality in the conduct of p olitics , he had many followers.
The most gifted of them were C ount C amillo di C avour of Piedmont (1810-1861)
and Otto von B ismarck of Prussia (1815-1898) , who entered p olitics during the
years of revolution and rose to prominence in the decade that followed. Their
single-minde d devotion to the interest of their countries and their willingness
to use any means, including violent and cynical repudiation of the public law,
in order to advance it came to be known as Realpolitik C avour once unconsciously
defined this when he said; "If we did for ourselves what we do for
Italy, we would b e great rascals . " The rise of these men was a clear threat to
the existing treaty structure , for the simple reason that existing tre aties blocked
the attainment of their desire to increase the p ower and territory of their countries.
This was true also of the man who made himself emperor of the French
in 1852, Louis Napoleon, whose very name was a challenge to the territorial
b alance arranged in 1815 .
In addition to this, the revolutions had left a legacy of distrust and suspicion
b etween the p owers that was to make it much h arder for them to act in concert
than it had been in the p ast. Tsar Nicholas of Russia could h ardly be expected
to put much confidence in a France that seemed to be repe ating the p attern
of the years 1789-1815; and Great Britain was also disturbed by the French
transition from republic to empire . The Austrians resented the fact that they
had had to rely upon Russian aid in the liquidation of their Hungarian troubles;
and S chwarzenberg was reported to have said, "We shall astonish the world
with our ingratitude . " Pruss ian conservatives, for the most p art, accepted the
setback at Olmiitz and favore d cooperation with Austria (see p . 205) , but this
was made difficult by the imperious manner with which the Austrians treated
them in the D iet of the Germanic C onfederation in the years that followed. Before
1848, Austria and Prussia had tacitly agreed to submit no issue to the D iet to

155

which e ither took exception; in amicable consultation, they always decided what
should and should not be placed b efore the representatives of the lesser German
states. After the C onfederation was re-established in 1850, this cooperation disapp
e ared. Increasingly, the Austrians sought to isolate the Prussians or overrule
them by maj ority votes; increasingly, the Prussians resorted to sabotage and
other blocking t actics in self-defense. This imp osed a continued strain upon
Austro-Prussian relations and convinced the Prussian delegate to the D iet, Otto
von B ismarck, that war with Austria was, s ooner or later, inevitable.
The new international atmosphere affected even the two p owers who had
managed to escape revolution in 1848 and whose l ong-distance collaboration
had prevented the outbreak of major war between that date and 1850. It was
the deterioration of relations b etween Great Britain and Russia that led to the
Crimean War, the first conflict between maj or p owers since 1815; and the war,
in its turn, further incre ased tension among the p owers and opened up new
opp ortunities for the Realpolitiker.
THE CRIMEAN WAR
The Causes of the War The Crimean War had its immediate ongms in
what will app e ar to mo dern readers to be a trifling dispute between Christians
of different sects over their rights in the Holy Land. Its essential causes, however,
were two in number: the tactics employed by Russia in the dispute, which were
high-handed and adopted without a clear appreciation of the effect they would
have in the West; and the inability of the British government, as the dispute
reached a critical stage , to follow a consistent course or to withstand the pressure
of an excited public opinion.
In 1852, under French pressure , the Turkish government g ave privileges in certain
sanctuaries in the Holy Land to Roman C atholic religious orders. The grant
seemed to infringe rights previously recognized as belonging to Greek Orthodox
orders, and the Russian government intervened in their behalf. In doing so,
however, it demanded not only that the Turkish government revise its e arlier
decision with respect to the s anctuaries but that it give formal recognition to
Russia's right to protect Greek Orthodox believers throughout the length and
breadth of Turkish dominions. This demand seemed as p otentially menacing
as it was vague in its formulation; and the Turkish government refused to comply
with it. Feeling that his p ersonal prestige was at stake, the tsar, in June 1853,
ordered Russian troops to cross the Pruth River into the D anubian princip alities,
with the intention of holding this Turkish territory as a pledge until the Turks
gave in.
In taking this injudicious step, Tsar Nicholas seems to h ave been convinced
that he was doing nothing more than protecting rights that had been properly
his since the eighteenth century. He failed t o see that his bullying intervention
in the Holy Land dispute would be interprete d in the West as the first move
in an attempt to destroy and dominate the Turkish empire. He made the mistake
of believing that the men whom he had visited during his English tour in 1844
would understand that, h owever much he might favor the bre akup of the Turkish
empire, he would never seek t o effect it unilaterally, but only in collaboration

156

with the other p owers. He unwisely b elieved that his friend Lord Aberdeen,
now prime minister of England, would not only appreciate this but would be
able t o p ersuade the other members of the government that this was true.
But Lord Aberdeen was in no position to do this. As a consequence of the
confusion introduced into British p olitics by the split of the Tory p arty over
the Corn Law issue in 1846 (see pp. 111-113) , the British cabinet in 1853 w as
a coalition ministry with no unified leadership . With respect to foreign affairs,
two schools of thought were represented in it. One of them, led by Aberdeen
and his foreign secretary Lord Clarendon, b elieved in secret diplomacy, collaboration
with other p owers, and the settlement of disputes as quickly and quietly
as p ossible. The other was led by the former foreign secretary, now home secretary,
Lord Palmerston, always an impulsive man and now incre asingly given
to irresponsibility, a b eliever in a forceful foreign p olicy, and always more
inclined to bully than to p arley. Aberdeen wante d to solve the E astern dispute
by having the European concert of p owers arrange a settlement and impose
it on the Turks , for whom he had no great regard. P almerston app arently susp
e cted Russian intentions and believed that the tsar would observe the integrity
of the Turkish empire only when convinced by a forceful demonstration that
he must. He wished, therefore, to solve the dispute by giving open and undeviating
supp ort to C onstantinople.'
If either course had been followed consistently, war might h ave been avoided.
As it was, a badly split cabinet vacillated between the two . In addition, Aqerdeen
and Clarendon were not happy with their ambassador at Constantinople, Stratford
C anning (Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) . Stratford had served a total of
twenty-five ye ars in Turkey; he was admired by the Turks and like d them in
return; in contrast, he distrusted the Russians and had a personal animus against
Nicholas I, who had refused t o accept him as ambassador to st. Petersburg in
1831 . Clarendon and the prime minister suspected that he was not acting in
the sense of the instructions they sent to him, and the foreign secretary wrote
to a friend:
It is a misfortune and a complication that we c annot feel sure of Stratford
acting with us for a peaceful solution. He pretends to do so . . . and app e ars
to carry out his instructions; but it is imp ossible to believe, if he put his
he art into it and set about work as he knows how to do there, that everything
should fail as it does . . . . He is bent on war, and on playing the
first p art in settling the gre at E astern Question . . . . He seems j ust as wild
as the Turks themselves, and together they may and will defeat every
combination coming from the west, however well devised it may be.
But Clarendon made no attempt to withdraw Stratford, p erhaps because Aberdeen
and he feared that the amb ass ador might form an alliance with P almerston
and stampede the country into war. The result of this temp orizing w as to obscure
British intentions. The tsar was encouraged by the diplomatic behavior of Aber-
2 The Soviet historian Tarle has argued that Aberdeen's pacific attitude was fraudulent and
that both he and Palmerston were seeking to maneuver the tsar into a ruinous war. The
evidence he adduces to support this view is not impressive.

157

deen and Clarendon to b elieve that they symp athized with him; whereas the
Turks were led, by Stratford's attitude and by British fleet movements in the
vicinity of the D ardanelles, to assume that the British (and the French, who
had disp atched a fleet to S alamis even before the Russians crossed the Pruth)
were on their side.
Attempts were made by represent atives of the Great Powers sitting at Vienna
t o find a formula that would guarantee the tsar's interests in the Turkish empire
and his right to protect his co-religionists, while at the same time safeguarding
the actual and p otential integrity of the Turkish re alm. The s olutions that the
diplomats devised always failed because of the inflexible opposition of the Turks
or because of declarations in st. Petersburg that cast doubt on Russian good
faith. Thus, affairs were allowed to drift until O ctober 1853, when the Turks
demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from the D anubian
princip alities and, receiving no reply, declared war upon the tsar. A month later
they opened hostilities by sending a fleet of seven frigates, three corvettes, and
two steam gunboats into the Black Sea to shell the Russian coast. Off Sinop e ,
this force was intercepted by a Russian squadron of equal strength under Admiral
Nakhimov:ln four hours of fighting, the Russians sank all but one of the Turkish
naval units, with a loss to the Turks of 4000 men.
The tsar seemed sobered, rather than exhilarated, by this victory over Turkey;
for he now proposed that he try to draft the terms of settlement of the RussoTurkish
dispute, which could then b e amended by the other p owers. Once they
had p ersuaded the Turkish government to agree to it, he would withdraw his
army from the princip aJities, and the British and French would withdraw their
fleets from the straits. This seems, in retrospect, to have been a not unre asonable
proposal. Yet when, in February 1854, the tsar submitted his draft settlement
to the representatives of the powers at Vienna, it was rejected without having
been given c areful consideration; and Great Britain and France immediately
declared war on Russia.
The French, who had displaye d little initiative since the first phase of the
long dispute, app arently took this step because the British were bent on action,
and they did not want to be left out. Alliance with England was always Louis
Napoleon's dearest wish. It is more difficult to explain the British declaration
of war. There were neither convincing strategic nor plausible economic reasons
for it, and one is led to the conclusion that the government was swept into
war by the pressure of public opinion.
Ever since 1848, the English public had been in an exalte d frame of mind.
The revolutions that had toppled so many thrones in Europ e increased their
pride in their own institutions and their contempt for the foreigner. Believing
in the n atural superiority of the British nation, they found it easy to feel that
Brit ain had a moral duty to interfere in all European disputes. C ombined with
this superiority complex and this distorte d sense of moral responsibility, there
w as a curious kind of romantic nationalism at work in England in 1853. This
was perhaps a form of protest against the dull and p acific decorum of midcentury
liberalism which did little to satisfy what seemed to b e a new craving
for excitement. Tennyson expressed this amalgam of confused feeling excellently
when he wrote, as the w ar approached:

158

it lighten'd my despair
When I thought that a w ar would rise in defence
of the right,
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,
The glory of mankind stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire :
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her p astoral hillock a l anguid note . . .
For the peace, that I deem'd no p e ace, is over and
done
And now by the side of the Black and B altic deep,
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.
The quarrel in the Holy Land had me ant little to the English people until
Russian troops marched into the D anubian princip alities; after that, the vast
maj ority were pro-Turk and anti-Russian. The spontaneous affection for Turkey
was remarkable. Richard Cob den, one of the few men in public life who had
some knowledge of the Near E ast, tried to tell audiences some of the less p alatable
truths ab out the Turkish emp ire-ab out its inefficiency, the corruption of its
government, and its imperviousness to reform. He was howled down by p e ople
who preferred to regard Turkey as a weak liberal nation being attacked by a
strong auto cratic one.
These feelings were encour aged by the newsp aper press, which was pre dominantly
anti-Russian and which vilified all attempts at moderation and s ane
diplomacy. The more sensational p apers p ortrayed Palmerston as fighting a lone
fight against colleagues who w anted t o cede C onstantinople to the tsar, while
even ordinarily respect able j ournals wrote of "the senile hesitations " of Aberdeen
and Clarendon. After the Turks declared war on Russia, pro-Turkish sentiment
was transformed into pro-war sentiment; and, when the Russians won their
victory at Sinope , this perfectly legitimate act of war was labeled "the massacre
of Sinop e . " By this time public opinion was so rabid th at people could seriously
believe that the prince consort was working in the Russian interest and could
applaud newsp aper statements like the one that said: "Better that a few drops
of guilty blood be shed on a scaffold on Tower Hill than that the country should
b e b alke d of its desire for war. "
The Crimean War came as a result of Turkish intransigence and inept diplomacy
and incautious military moves on the p art of Russia and the Western
Powers. It would appear also , however, that there is much j ustification for the
diary notation made by Thomas C arlyle after the outbreak of war: " It is the
idle population of editors etc. that h ave done all this in England. One perceives
cle arly that the Ministers go forward in it against their will . . . . Poor S ouls! What
could the Ministry do after all? "
The Conduct of the War The two things that are most fre quently remembered
ab out the Crimean War are, first, that a heroic British nurse named
Florence Nightingale organized field hospitals for cholera-stricken British troops

159

and, second (and this because of Lord Tennyson's p oem), th at a brigade of British
light c avalry was sent, because of a b adly drafted and wrongly interpreted
order, against impregnable Russian gun p ositions and was almost completely
destroye d. It is understandable that popular recollection goes no further. D isease
bulked larger in the war than military action, which was on the whole undistinguished;
no belligerent emerged from the conflict with laurels; and the military
reputation of the Russians and the British in p articular was seriously diminished.
It is significant of the failure of the Western allies to make careful plans for
war before precipitating it that, although Britain and France declared war on
Russia in M arch 1854, their troops made no contact with the enemy until late
S eptember. The intervening six months was filled with negotiations designed
to persuade Austria to j oin their alliance. The presence of Russian troops in
the princip alities, where they threatened Austrian economic interests on the
D anub e , gave a plausible pretext for Austrian intervention in the eyes of some
civilian statesmen in Vienna; but the soldiers firmly opposed the idea, fe aring
that it would bring the whole weight of the war against the Austrian b orders.
In any case, the Russians, in August, withdrew the pretext by evacuating the
princip alities, and the Austrians decided, for the time being, to remain neutral.
The Prussians chose neutrality for re asons much like the Austrian; and the
Swedes refused to be tempted into coming into the war by promises of the
acquisition of Finland. The allies were finding it difficult to come to grips with
their foe and were embarrassed at having to che at their public of the promised
victories. They decided, therefore, to strike at the most important Russian naval
b ase on the Black Sea, the p ort of Seb astop ol; and in mid- September they lande d
50,000 troops on the Crimean peninsula. Except for some confused and unrewarding
naval maneuvers far to the north in the Aaland islands, the military
action of the war was confined to the Crimea.
Direct and determined action immediately after the landing would probably
have enabled the allies to take Seb astopol at once, for they broke the initial
Russian resistance at the b attle of the Alma River and should h ave learned from
their success that they were confronted with an army that had steadily deteriorated
during the reign of Nicholas I and p ossessed neither sound tactical doctrine,
efficient leadership , nor adequate infantry firepower. But they preferred to rely
on elaborate maneuvers, and this gave their opp onent time t o fortify the b ase
and forced the Western armies into siege warfare that laste d until June 1855.
The Russians, on their side , tried to mount a counteroffensive that would clear
the p eninsula, but they failed at Balaklava (where the unfortunate charge of
the Light Brigade took place) in O ctober 1854 and again at Inkerman in November.
After that, the conflict degenerated into a we ary war of attrition broken by
sporadic raids, while the troops suffered fe arfully from cold, dysentery, and
cholera.
In the accounts written of the war by The Times's correspondent W. H. Russell,
one can sense the gradual dissip ation of the romantic aura that surrounded its
opening campaigns and the dawning of a sense of the pointless brutality of the
last b attles. During the allie d advance toward the Russian positions overlooking
the Alma River, Russell was impressed by the gallantry and color of the b attle
array; he wrote gaily:

160

The troops steadily advanced in grand lines like the waves of the ocean,
with our left frittered away as it were into a foam o f skirmishers under
C olonel Lawrence and Maj or Norcott, of the Rifle Brigade, 2nd b attalion,
covered by squadrons of the 11th and 8th Hussars, and p ortions of the
4th, 13th Light Dragoons, and 17th Lancers. This w as a sight of inexpressible
grandeur, and for the first time one was struck with the splendid app e arance
of our Infantry in line. Red is the colour, after all, and the white slashings
of the bre ast of the coat and the cross belts, though rendering a man
conspicuous enough, give him an app e arance of size which other uniforms
do not produce. The dark French columns on our right looked very small
compared to our b attalions, though we knew they were quite as strong;
but the marching of our allies, laden as they were with all their p acks,
& , was wonderful-the pace at which they went was re ally "killing . " It
w as o bservable, too, that our staff was more conspicuous and more numerous
than the staff of our brave friends. Nothing strikes the eye like
a co cked hat and a bunch of white cock's feathers . . . .
Russell's account of the dogged seesaw fighting at Inkerman, on the other hand,
was in a different vein, emphasizing the fortuitousness and the planlessness of
the struggle.
Who was in command whilst the b attle-a continuous series of detached
combats and isolated engagements-was consuming the weary, dismal,
anxious hours? No one in p articular, I think! No one could judge of the
progress of the fight, least of all those who were in the midst of it, and
p erhaps it was as well that "giving orders" was not much indulge d in.
Every one was fighting for his own hand where he stood. Wherever a
grey cloud of Russians emerged in whirling columns from the mist , and
became visible to any b o dy of our infantry in valley, ravine, or hill, it
was assailed by fire-fiercely resisted!-aye! charged with the b ayonet! Every
foot of ground was disputed by handfuls of men led by the officer of the
moment, the accidental chief who became master of some vital spot, unknown
perhaps to him in its relation to the safety of our whole p osition,
but which was held with bulldog tenacity till death or numbers asserted
their p ower. And so it was that mere subordinate personalities, inspiring
the ob durate and resolute handfuls with their own p ower and resolution,
without orders of general direction, c arried out the gre at purposes of
resistance , and as rocks meet the onset of the angry sea, broke the rush
of the waves of Muscovites as they rolled on from the void.
As in later wars, the Russians seemed to have inexhaustible supplies of manp
ower, and it b egan to dawn upon the we ary allies that even the c apture of
Sebastop ol might not induce them to surrender. This consideration, and incre asing
criticism at home of the way in which they were conducting the war, convinced
the Western governments that something must be done to impress the
tsar and to induce him to yield. One possible way of doing this was by widening
their coalition. In January 1855, they had made a start toward this by winning

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the alliance of Pie dmont, whose chief minister C avour hoped that intervention
might s afeguard his c ountry's interests in Italy by winning the sympathy of Britain
and France. But this meant an addition of only 17,000 troops to the allied war
effort, and it did not and could not open another front against Russia. It was
clear that only Austrian intervention would contribute significantly to Western
strength.
In D ecember 1854, under strong Western pressure, the Austrian government
signed an engagement that seemed to assure such intervention. The b asis of
this was a statement of war aims called the Four Points of Vienna, which calle d
for the renunciation by Russia of her prep onderant influence in the princip alities,
a similar renunciation of her claim to protect Turkish subjects of Greek
Orthodox faith, an international guarantee of free navigation at the mouth of
the D anube, and a revision of the Straits Convention of 1841 "in the interests
of the b alance of p ower in Europ e . " If Russia did not agree to these p oints
within two months, Austria agreed to enter the war, and the Western Powers
agreed to guarantee her against any revolutionary troubles in Italy while the
fighting continued.
The agreement of D ecember 1854, which caused premature rej oicing in the
West, remained a dead letter. In negotiating it, Britain and France had yielded
t o the Austrian argument that the Hapsburg empire could raise the necessary
troops only if sup p orted by the German C o nfederation; and this had been made

162

a condition of the alliance. But the smaller German states had no stomach for
dangerous adventures, and B ismarck, the Prussian envoy to the C onfederation,
had no desire t o help the Austrians drag all Germany into a war from which
the Hapsburgs would derive whatever benefits accrued from victory. Bismarck's
arguments and their own fears p ersuaded the members of the D iet to turn down
the Austrian request for supp ort.
The Western governments were infuriated by this check, which meant further
prolongation of the miserable camp aign in the Crimea. They went on trying to
win Austria's help ; but it was not until Sebastopol had fallen in September
1855 and they had resorted to naked blackmail that they broke down her neutrality.
Declarations to C avour that they were now prepared t o offer their "good
offices" in Italian affairs, and threatening intimations to Vienna that continued
neutrality might lead them to support a new Piedmontese drive, persuaded the
Vienna cabinet, in D ecember 1855, to send an ultimatum to St. Petersburg. This
would probably merely have stiffened the resistance of Tsar Nicholas I, who
b itterly resented Francis Joseph's failure to repay the service he had done him
in 1849. But Nicholas had died in March (in that month, in London, Alexander
Herzen, who had fled from the tsar's secret p olice, heard newsboys laughing
and shouting: " Impernickle is dead!") and his successor Alexander II w as ready
for peace. On receipt of the Austrian ultimatum he declared his willingness t o
accept t h e Four Points; a n d t h e w a r w a s effectively over, h aving c o s t the lives
of half a million men (a figure larger than that for any Europ ean war between
1815 and 1914), two thirds of whom died not of wounds but of disease.
THE AFTERMATH
The Peace of Paris The settlement of the issues that had caused war was
already forecast in the Four P oints and was now made more precise in the peace
negotiations that took place in Paris b etween February and April 1856. For the
Russians, the price of defeat was not exorbit ant, but it was certainly hUhliliating.
The tsar was now formally deprived o f the rights for which he had contested
so stubbornly. The treaty placed the D anubian princip alities of Moldavia and
Wallachia outside the Russian sphere of influence; and it also denied Russian
claims to a protectorate over the sultan's Greek Orthodox subj ects by affirming
the complete independence of the Ottoman empire. In addition, the tsar was
forced to agree to leave the Aaland Islands, in the Gulf of Finland, unfortified,
t o return the fortress of Kars, which his armies had c aptured from Turkey in
the last months of the war, to give up control of the mouths of the D anube
by ceding the B essarabian territory on both sides of the river to Turkey, and
to acknowledge the authority of two international commissions which were
appointed to deal with navigation rights on the important w aterway.
At the same time, the Straits Convention of 1841 was revised. The sultan of
Turkey undertook "to maintain the principle invariably established as the ancient
rule of the Empir e , " prohibiting the entrance of war vessels into the D ardanelles
and the Bosphorus, and the p owers agreed to ob serve this rule. The Black S e a
w a s neutralized; all arsenals a n d fortifications on its shores w e r e forbidden; and
freedom of trade was established in its waters. These provisions affected the

163

Turks as much as the Russians, but they were clearly directed against the latter
and designe d to erect a b arrier to Russian exp ansion to the south and west.
Prob ably the most important single action of the delegates to the Paris C onference
was their regulation of the situation of the D anubian princip alities. By
abrogating the rights of interference that the tsar had possessed since the tre aty
of Adrianople in 1829 (see p. 27), they took the first step toward cre ating a new
European state, that of Rumania. Although the princip alities were left under
Turkish sovereignty, they re ally b e c ame w ards of the p owers, who promised them
an " independent and national administration" within the Turkish re alm. Before
the decade was over, that promise had been more than realized, and the princip
alities were united under a ruler of the ir own choice and had b egun a c areer
of political independence that was to last until 1941.
Another result of the conference's work was to be remembered by future
generations, and espe cially by neutral nations in time of w ar. This was the
so-called D eclaration of Paris, by which the p owers sought to c odify the rules
governing commerce during maritime wars. It laid down the principle that free
ships make free goods and that noncontraband neutral prop erty must be respected
even on enemy ships. It forbade neutrals to issue letters of marque to
privateers in wartime. It denied the validity of "paper blockades" by stating
that the right to impose a blockade could be claime d only if it were established
with adequ ate force to make it respected.
Finally, the conference brought Turkey into the C oncert of Europ e , and the
signatory p owers guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the
Ottoman empire and promised to settle individual disputes with the Turkish
government by consultation with e ach other. The treaty specifically mentioned
a recent Turkish announcement of prospective concessions to the empire 's Chris-

164

tian subj ects and commended it. If this was an indication that the p owers hoped,
by exerting delicate pressure and encouragement, to lead the Turks into the
p aths of progressive internal reform, it failed in the result. Until the end of the
century. Turkish reforms were largely on paper, and their insensitivity to the
grievances of their subj ect p e oples was the c ause of much trouble for the p owers.
The Future of the C oncert The conference in P aris seemed to be an impressive
reaffirmation of the principle of collective responsibility and action by the
Great Powers, and the delegates acted as if they fully believed that the European
C oncert would b e effective in the years that followed. They showed this by
the solemnity with which they declared that the Ottoman empire would henceforth
"p articip ate in the benefits of the public l aw of Europe and of the Europ ean
C oncert " ; and they showed it also by the spe cific rights and responsibilities
they claimed for "Europe." The peace treaty gave to the p owers acting in concert
a general right of intervention in international disputes and a number of specific
mandates: to mediate when necessary between the Turkish empire and any other
state, to protect the privileges of the D anubian princip alities and to watch over
the autonomous rights of Serbia, to guarantee the Ionian Isles, and to define
and regulate the free navigation of the D anube River. Moreover, by p ermitting
C avour to bring the Italian question b efore the conference in its last sessions,
t o criticize conditions in Naples and the papal states, and to attack Austrian
p olicy in the peninsula, the conferees seeme d to imply that the future of Italyand,
indeed, all problems of similar international scope and importance-would
h ave to b e solved by the C oncert of Europe and by it alone.
These app arent signs of a hopeful future for the principle of collective action
in the interest of peace were misleading. The Italian question was not going
to be solved by collaborative effort on the p art of the powers; and the C oncert
was t o prove generally ineffective in the next twenty years.
This w as almost inevitable, for the war had strengthened the suspicions and
resentments that the revolutipns of 1848 had sown among the p owers, while
at the same time it gravely weakened their commitment to the existing territorial
and legal organization of Europe. Napoleon III had been in favor of thoroughgoing
revision of the Vienna settlement even before he went to war in the Crime a,
and his desire to advance that end, and to win glory and perhaps territory for
his country, had been heightened by his military success. Nor was he alone
in preferring change to the s anctity of the written law. There were signs that
the Prussians were discontented with their present condition. The Prussian
government had been angere d and frightened by what had appe ared to b e an
Austrian attempt to drag them into the war; and the reluctance with which
the other p owers extended an invitation to them to p articipate in the peace
conference made Pruss ian statesmen fe ar that the Great Power status of their
country was endangered. That fear soon led to the reorganization and strengthening
of the Pruss ian army and the inauguration of an aggressive and exp ansionist
foreign p olicy. Finally, Russia was transformed by the war from the strongest
supporter of the treaty structure to a bitterly revisionist p ower. It could no longer
b e c ounted on to come to the defense of the Europ e an b alance when it was
thre atened. This was p artly because the damage wrought by the war necessitated

165

a temp orary withdrawal from the sphere of foreign p olitics (as Prince Gorchakov,
the new Russian foreign minister, said at this time: "La Russie ne boude pas;
la Russie se recueille"), but more b e c ause of resentment over the territorial losses
suffered at Paris and the p olicy of cont ainment adopted by the other p owers.
The peace treaty, in Palmerston's words, represented "a long line of circumvallation
to confine the future extension of Russia . . . at any rate to her present
circumferenc e . " The Russians were resolved to defy that containment, and the
first step in that direction would be to regain their military rights on the Black
Sea. It did not take long for Russian statesmen to realize that this objective
might be advance d if trouble rather than order prevailed in other p arts of Europe.
This is what Gorchakov me ant in M ay 1856 when he wrote t o his ambassador
in Paris: " I am looking for a man who will annul the clauses of the treaty of
Paris . . . . I am looking for him and I shall find him. "
Austria and Great Britain could, it is true, still be describe d as supporters
of the existing b alance, but w as it likely that they could, or would, withstand
adventures by ambitious powers? Although it had not become an active belligerent
in the w ar, Austria had been weakened by heavy expenditures for weap ons
that were never used, and it had lost even more heavily in reputation. Prussia
resented its wartime b ehavior for reasons already discussed; Russia, because
it smacked of rank ingratitude; Britain and France, because it had consisted
of military commitments and promises never fulfilled. Isolated by this general
dislike, and threatened in Italy, Austria hardly promised t o be an effective
bulwark of p e ace and the existing order.
'
As for Great Britain, doubt was thrown on its ability to withstand attacks
on the public law by the disap p ointing p erformance of its forces in the Crimea.
Its army had gone into the war without a field commissariat, an effective system
of supply, a corps of service troops, or an ambulance corps or medical service
(after the b attle of the Alma it w as discovered that there were no splints or
b andages on hand) , without any experience in the combined use of c avalry,
infantry, and artillery, and without any generals who knew the duties of their
rank. The military talents of the supreme commander, Lord Raglan, were exiguous;
those of his chief sub ordinates , Lords Lucan and C ardigan, nonexistent.
A j unior officer wrote of this p air: "Without mincing matters, two such fools
could hardly be p icked out of the British Army. And they t ake command. But
they are E arls! " The effect of all this on Britain's military reputation was shattering.
When the war was over, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote to an English friend :
T h e heroic courage of your soldiers was everywhere a n d unreservedly
praised, but I found also a general belief that the imp ortance of England
as a military p ower had been gre atly exaggerated, that she is utterly devoid
of military talent, which is shown as much in administration as in fighting,
and that, even in the most pressing circumstances, she c annot raise a large
army.
Ap art from this, it became increasingly clear in the years after 1856 that the
British p e ople wanted to be involved in no new European troubles. The war
had had a sobering effect in England and had bred a desire for peace and a

166

reluctance to make any commitments that might j e op ardize it. This was known
on the Continent; and subse quently, whenever British statesmen and diplomats
talked about the p ossibility of active intervention in Europ e an disputes, the other
p owers were less impressed than they might h ave been if the popular mood
in England (and her military reputation) had been what they were before the
fighting in the Crimea. Indeed, in 1864, Benj amin Disraeli was to say angrily
in the House of C o mmons: "Within twelve months we have been twice repulsed
at 81. Petersburg. Twice we h ave supplicated in vain at P aris. We h ave menaced
Austria, and Austria has allowe d our menaces t o p ass her like the idle wind.
We have threatened Prussia, and Prussia h.as defied us."
Because of the mutual distrust of the p owers, the new ambitions of certain
of their number, and the new weakness of others, the future of Europe was
to b e determined not by the C oncert of Europe but by the actions of individual
adventurers. Of these, the one who seemed most impressive and formidable in
1856 was Louis Napoleon, emperor of the French.

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Godfried






























HE history of Europe after 1815 is !arBely the history of the
struggle between progress and reaction for the control' of
government agencies. At the beginning of the period the
forces of reaction and conserva.tism were in control; but,
with the gradual spread of the Industrial Revolution, the
middle class (or bourgeoisie) and the working class (or
proletariat ) increased in size and importance, and became, especially when
acting in concert, formidable opponents of reaction and conservatism. The
revolutions of 1 848 were a series of incidents, widespread geographically
but contemporary and interacting, in this prolonged struggle.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 IN FRANCE
The February Revolution.-\Vhen the French parliament met at the
close of the year 1847, Louis Philippe, in his speech from the throne, denounced
the agitation for electoral and parliamentary reform which had
been carried on by means of banquets during the preceding summer
months. By way of protest at the government's attitude, advocates of reform
determined to hold a banquet in Paris. Eighty-seven deputies belonging
to the Dynastic Left agreed to attend and to make speeches; but they
stipulated that the banquet must be held at some place on the Avenue des
Champs-Elysees, a section of the city inhabited by the well·to-do classes,
and that a high price must be charged for the tickets. Plainly the deputies
wanted this to be a dignified banquet from which disorderly workingmen
and radical ideas would be excluded.
The time eventually set for the banquet was midday, February 22, 1848.
According to the plan of procedure as published in certain radical newspapers,
the ticket-holding guests, including the eighty-seven deputies, were

114

to assemble in front of the Madeleine Church and march to the banquet
hall, escorted by a monster procession of workingmen, National Guardsmen,
students, and populace. Noting the radical character of the men
who were promoting the enterprise, and fearful of disorder, the deputies
involved began to demur and lay down reservations, and they felt greatly .
relieved when the government on February 21 positively forbade the
banquet and the procession.
February 22 was chill and rainy; but, notwithstanding the inclemency
of the weather, immense crowds gathered in front of the Madeleine
Church, in the Place de la Concorde, in the Avenue des Champs-Ely,,'es,
and around the Palais Bourbon where the Chamber of Deputies sat. All
afternoon there was much noise; but the police kept the crowds fairly well
in hand. Toward nightfall the excitement began to subside and the participants
in the demonstration began to disperse gnd go home. The gov·
ernment congratulated itself on being able to prevent the banquet and
felt assured that the next day would find Paris calm once more.
But during the night a few barricades were erected in the eastern part
of the city where the workingmen dwelt. On February 23 the king called
out the National Guard for the first time since 1840 to suppress insurrection.
But the National Guard showed a marked disposition not to attack
the barricades. A battalion of Guardsmen marching past the Tuileries
Palace shouted under the king's windows : "Long live reform!" "Down
with Guizotl" Louis Philippe, who had long been accustomed to judge
the drift of opinion among the lower middle classes by the shouts of the
National Guard, now recognized the ' gravity of the situation. At two
0' clock in the afternoon he dismissed Guizot. The opposition deputies
and the National Guard now had what they wanted and were anxious to
stop further demonstrations. Indeed toward the end of the day the excitement
seemed to be dying down. The barricades were being removed, and
houses all over the city were illuminated as a sign of rejoicing.
In the midst of the rejoicing, however, an incident occurred which pre??
oipitated a revolution. About ten o'clock that night a crowd of working·
men from the eastern section of the city, shouting and singing, tramped
around the boulevards to the Ministry- of Foreign Affairs where Guizot
lived and began to annoy the soldiers who were stationed there as a guard.
The officer in command, seeing his troops becoming demoralized by the
drunken horseplay, gave the order to fire on the crowd. A valley rang out
and about eighty persons fell to the ground dead or wounded. The crowd
dispersed in terror, but SOOn came back with a great open van. The van,
piled high with dead bodies, was dragged through the streets in weird
torchlight procession. Throughout the night church bells tolled as the
signal for insurrection. The next morning the eastern half of Paris bristled
with barricades and resounded with the cry of "Long live the republic!"

115

Toward ten o'clock in the morning of February 24 the insurgents, taking
the offensive, marched against the Palace of the Tuileries where the
king resided. In the vicinity of the palace they were checked by regular
troops in a brisk skirmish which lasted several hours. During the skirmish
Louis Philippe showed himself on horseback to the National Guard drawn
up in the courtyard of the palace. The shouts that greeted his appearance
convinced him that the National Guard could no longer be depended on
to defend his throne. Thoroughly discouraged he re-entered the palace
and abdicated in favor of his ten-year-old grandson, the Count of Paris;
the boy's widowed mother,' . the Duchess of Orleans, would be regent
during the minority. By two o'clock Louis Philippe was on his way to England,
following Charles X into exile. The Duchess of Orleans betook herself
with tho young king to the Palais Bourbon, in the expectation that
the Chamber of Deputies would proclaim him king and her regent.
No sooner had the royal family vacated the Tuilcries than the insurgent
mob, unhindered by any resistance, burst in and put the building to sack.
Proceeding thence to the Palais Bourbon, the mob burst in upon the
Chamber of Deputies, shouting: "Down with the monarchy!" "Down
with the Chamber!" "Long live the republic!" The young king and his
mother were unceremoniously hustled out of the hall by their friends and
escorted to a place of safety; the president of the chamber disappeared
through a convenient door; and all the deputies took French leave except
a few radicals on the extreme left. This remnant of the chamber and the
mob, in the midst of uproar and tumult, declared the House of Orleans
deposed and then proceeded to appoint a provisional government made up
of seven deputies-Lamartine, Ledru-Rollin, Arago, Marie, Gamier-Pages,
Cremieux, and Dupont de I'Eure.
Meanwhile, at the city hall, in another part of Paris, Socialist leaders
were setting up another provisional government with a slightly different
personnel. Toward nightfall the seven deputies chosen at the Palais Bourbon
marched through the streets to the city hall, where the two groups
were fused. Positions were found for four Socialist leaders-Louis Blanc,
Marrast, Flacon, and Albert-and the provisional government, now increased
to eleven members, installed itself at the city hall?
The Provisional Government.-From the outset the new government
was under the leadership of Lamartine, poet, historian, and orator, who
assumed the portfolio of foreign affairs. Ledru-Rollin became minister of
1 The Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's eldest son, died in 1842, leaving the Count
of Paris in the direct line of succession.
II The association of Republicans and Socialists in the provisional government was
of course not conducive to harmony, but the distinction between the two groups was
not sharp. Ledru-Rollin, for example, can be classified as either a Republican or a
Socialist.

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the interior and Marie, minister of public works. Other portfolios were
assigned to men who were supposed to be well qualified to hold them.
The first act of the new government was to proclaim France a republic.
Censorship of the press was abolished, as were the restrictions on the right
to form clubs and associations and to hold public meetings. On March 5
a call was issued for the election on April 9 of a national assembly, composed
of 900 deputies, to draft a constitution for the republic. In this
election there was to be universal manhood
"
suffrage, and every male French
citizen over twenty-five years old would be eligible for election as a deputy.
Each deputy was to receive a salary of twenty-five francs a day for his
services. Thus at a stroke the number of voters was increased from about
200,000 to more than 9>000,000, and the daily pay of twenty-five francs
would make it possible for men without property to serve os deputies.
But the provisional government was not left free to work out the salvation
of France in an atmosphcre of peace and calm deliberation. During
the first week of its existence it was assailed every day by an armed mob
which had to be pacificd with concessions or fair words. On February '5,
in order to pacify five or six thousand clamoring workingmen, the government
issued a decree guaranteeing employment to all citizens on demand.
This commitment, the most reckless perhaps ever made by any govern·
ment, was followed immediately by the opening of "national workshops."
To all the unemployed employment was offered. Those who accepted the
oHer were grouped in squads, brigades, and companies, and, irrespective
of whether they were masons, carpenters, upholsterers, .cabinetmakers,
shoemakers, or ditchdiggers, were set to work at making excavations at
the uniform wage of two francs ( forty cents) a day. By the end of the
first week in March, 10,000 were on the payroll; by the end of the first
week in April, 60,000; by the middle of May, 120,000. Since it was physically
impossible to find employment at Paris for more than '4,000 a day,
a system of rotation was devised-two or three days of work a week for each
man and four or five days of idleness. The men left idle received each a
franc and a half a day. The possibility of getting a living wage for part-time
work attracted to the "national workshops" thousands of vagabonds and
tramps from Paris and from the large cities of the provinces. Even workingmen
employed in private industries quit their jobs and joined the turbulent
throng of feeders at the public crib.
The "national workshops" were represented as Louis Blanc's idea, but
be it said in his defense that he never had any such ridiculous system in
mind. What he advocated was a system of co-operative associations, for
the formation of which the state was to furnish the capital. Each association
was to be managed by the workingmen themselves, who would determine
the rate of wages and distribute equitably the net profits of the enterprise
(p. 62 ) . What the provisional government actually set up was a

117

hastily improvised system of poor relief. Instead of each artisan practising
the trade or profession for which he was especially trained, all were s,et to
work at digging ditches and filling them up again, a labor which could
hardly be called productive. According to the admission of Marie, minister
of public works, the experiment was meant to fail in order to destroy the
popularity of Louis Blanc and demonstrate to the workingman that his
theories were impracticable.
In the elections which were to be held on April 9 the French people
would have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of what the provi.
sional government had done. Was the sentiment of the country socialistic
or antisocialistic, republican or antirepublican? Lamartine and others who
made up the Republican wing of the provisional government, feeling reasonably
certain that the elections would redound to their advantage, weI·
corned the prospect. But what brought comfort to the Republicans
alarmed the Socialists. In the numerous popular clubs dominated by
Socialist leaders it was determined to force an indefinite postponement of
the elections, to purge the provisional government of its Republican memo
bers, and set up a committee of public safety which would undertake to
"educate the country" and prepare the way for an election favorable to the
Socialists. But a monster demonstration for this purpose on March 1 7 was
only partially successful: the government consented to postpone the elections
only until April 23. A second demonstration one week before the
elections accomplished nothing at all: the demonstrators were overawed
by the timely arrival of the National Guard and went slinking back to the
"national workshops" and the popular clubs whence they had come.
The struggle between the parties was now transferred to the polls. The
deputies of the National Assembly were to be elected by general ticket
(scrutin de liste) in each department, a plurality sufficing to elect. The
result was favorable to the moderate Republicans. In Paris, out of twenty·
four Socialist candidates on the ticket, only three were elected-Louis
Blanc, Flacon, and Albert; in the provinces the Socialist strength waS almost
nil. The country 'had voted overwhelmingly for men of moderate
views, men who belonged to the propertied middle classes and who believed
in maintaining order. For the moment all the newly elected deputies
were willing to continue the experiment of the republic; but what form
of government would ultimately be established, after the incubus of Socialism
had been removed and order restored, was anybody's guess.
The National Assembly.-On May 4 the National Assembly met at the
Palais Bourbon and organized for business, The provisional government
formally laid down its powers and five of its members-Lamartine, Marie,
Ledru-Rollin, Garnier-Pages, and Arago-were straightway appointed by
the assembly to serve as an executive committee until the constitution
should be finished, Thus the "purge" had indeed taken place, but the

118

hastily improvised system of poor relief. Instead of each artisan practising
the trade or profession for which he was especially trained, all were s,et to
work at digging ditches and filling them up again, a labor which could
hardly be called productive. According to the admission of Marie, minister
of public works, the experiment was meant to fail in order to destroy the
popularity of Louis Blanc and demonstrate to the workingman that his
theories were impracticable.
In the elections which were to be held on April 9 the French people
would have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of what the provi.
sional government had done. Was the sentiment of the country socialistic
or antisocialistic, republican or antirepublican? Lamartine and others who
made up the Republican wing of the provisional government, feeling reasonably
certain that the elections would redound to their advantage, weI·
corned the prospect. But what brought comfort to the Republicans
alarmed the Socialists. In the numerous popular clubs dominated by
Socialist leaders it was determined to force an indefinite postponement of
the elections, to purge the provisional government of its Republican memo
bers, and set up a committee of public safety which would undertake to
"educate the country" and prepare the way for an election favorable to the
Socialists. But a monster demonstration for this purpose on March 1 7 was
only partially successful: the government consented to postpone the elections
only until April 23. A second demonstration one week before the
elections accomplished nothing at all: the demonstrators were overawed
by the timely arrival of the National Guard and went slinking back to the
"national workshops" and the popular clubs whence they had come.
The struggle between the parties was now transferred to the polls. The
deputies of the National Assembly were to be elected by general ticket
(scrutin de liste) in each department, a plurality sufficing to elect. The
result was favorable to the moderate Republicans. In Paris, out of twenty·
four Socialist candidates on the ticket, only three were elected-Louis
Blanc, Flacon, and Albert; in the provinces the Socialist strength waS almost
nil. The country 'had voted overwhelmingly for men of moderate
views, men who belonged to the propertied middle classes and who believed
in maintaining order. For the moment all the newly elected deputies
were willing to continue the experiment of the republic; but what form
of government would ultimately be established, after the incubus of Socialism
had been removed and order restored, was anybody's guess.
The National Assembly.-On May 4 the National Assembly met at the
Palais Bourbon and organized for business, The provisional government
formally laid down its powers and five of its members-Lamartine, Marie,
Ledru-Rollin, Garnier-Pages, and Arago-were straightway appointed by
the assembly to serve as an executive committee until the constitution
should be finished, Thus the "purge" had indeed taken place, but the

119

to continue the dictatorship of Cavaignac until the constitution should be
finished and an executive appointed in accordance with its provisions.
Now that the Socialists were suppressed the assembly could turn its
attention to the task for which it had been elected-the drafting of a constitution
for the Second French Republic.' The assembly began this task,
in the traditional French manner, by drafting a declaration of the rights
of man. To insure an exact balance between the executive and legislative
departments of government, it made careful provision for the "separation
of powers." Over the nature of these departments, the debates were prolonged
into October. The decision ultimately reached was to delegate the
lawmaking power to a unicameral legislative assembly of 750 members.
elected by universal manhood suffrage for a term of three years and renewable
in its entirety at the end of that period, and to delegate the.
executive power to a president of the republic, elected by universal manhood
suffrage for a term of four years and ineligible for re-election until
four years had elapsed. The president was to appoint his own ministers,
head the vast civil administration, and exercise supreme command over
the army and navy. But, in accordance with the doctrine of the "separation
of powers," he was denied the right, under any pretext whatever, to
dissolve the legislative assembly and call for a new election, or to veto
legislative enactments. On the other hand, the legislative assembly could
not depose the president: the most it could do was to impeach him and
bring him to trial before a high court set up for that specific purpose.
Thus the great defect of the constitution was the establishment of two
co-ordinate branches of government, the executive and the legislative,
without any provision for a settlement in case of conflict between the two.
Since the president would presumably know his own mind and have the
bureaucracy and the armed forces at his disposal, he would act quickly and
decisively; whereas the legislative assembly, consisting of 750 members and
divided into factions, would necessarily act slowly and indecisively. In the
struggle for supremacy, therefore, the advantage would be definitely on
the side of the president. The possibility of such a struggle was clearly
foreseen and fully aired in the debates, but the Republican deputies were
so infatuated with the doctrine of popular sovereignty that they stood out
for the choice of the president by. the people. "Something must be left
to Providence," said Lamartine.
The National Assembly finished the constitution on November 4 and
fixed December 10 as the date for the presidential election. Three candidates
were especially prominent: Cavaignac, the conservative Republican,
who had suppressed the Socialist uprising in June and who since that time
had directed the government in the character of a military dictator; Ledrua
The First French Republic, proclaimed in 1792, was destroyed by Napoleon Bonaparte,
the first emperor of the French.

120

Rollin, the radical Republican, who counted o n the support o f the workingmen
and radicals generally; and Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who
stood above all parties and factions. When the votes were counted, it was
discovered that the prince had been elected by an overwhelming majority.
The result was officially announced in the National Assembly on December
20. Going forward to the speaker's rostrum and standing in the
presence of the deputies, Louis Napoleon took the oath of fidelity to the
republic as prescribed by the constitution, and made a short speech in
which he expressed the hope that he and the Legislative Assembly might
work together in harmony. "My duty is clear," .he said; "I will fulfill it as
a man of honor." That night he transferred his residence to the Elysee
Palace, where a few rooms had been hastily prepared for his use. Technically
the revolution was now over, but many were still dissatisfied with
the outcome and distrustful of the President.
THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1 848 IN CENTRAL EUROPE
The news of the February Revolution at Paris quickly spread through
the whole of Central Europe. Everywhere it was like a spark applied to
tinder. From the Rhine to the frontier of Russia, from the Baltic to the
southern shore of Sicily, the fires of revolution were kindled, and ran sputtering
and flaming through the land. The Metternich system vanished in
smoke and the attempt was made to erect in its place a system based on
the principles of nationalism and democracy. In order to simplify the
story as much as possible, only the important revolutionary movements
will be noticed here, and each will be traced from beginning to end as if
it were isolated from the others; but this simplification has the disadvantage
of blotting out the view of the forest in order to bring into high relief
a few clumps of trees. Events were taking place simultaneously at widely
separated points, interacting and interrelated, making this the most confused
period of modern European history.
The National Assembly at Frankfort.-On March 5 some fifty liberals
from the states of southern and western Germany, stimulated by the new.
from Paris, met at Heidelberg and took counsel together in regard to the
possibility of calling for the popular election of a National Assembly to
draft a federal constitution for all the German states. The result of the
conference was an invitation addressed to some 500 liberal leaders, who
had in some form or other taken part in public aflairs, to meet at Frankfort
on March 30 and make the necessary arrangements for'
the popular election.
This preliminary convention, or Vorparlament as it was called, sat but five
days, and the call for the election was immediately issued. AlJ.the German
states and provinces, whether technically within the borders of the confederation
or not, were requested to elect deputies by universal manhood

121

suffrage, one deputy for every 50,000 inhabitants, to the National Assembly
which was to meet at Frankfort on May 18. The response was general and
enthusiastic. The princes and their governments, panic-stricken by the
sudden revolutionary upsurge, attempted no interference. Bohemia alone,
where the Czech majority resisted any closer union with Germany, declined
to send deputies.
The National Assembly met at Frankfort on the day appointed. There
were nearly 600 deputies. Almost all the prominent liberal politicians of
every German state had been elected, and nearly all were middle class
intellectuals-historians, professors, theologians, jurists, and journalistseager
to air their views in eloquent speeches. The first important question
to come up for consideration concerned the form of the provisional government
which should govern Germany until the constitution should be
finished. After a lOng debate, lasting throughout the month of June, the
assembly invested Archduke John of Austria, long known as an enemy of
the Metternich system, with full executive powers under the title of Imperial
Vicar. On July 12, when the archduke took the oath of office, the
Federal Diet which had been in continuous session at Frankfort sillce ISlG,
ceased to exist as a recognized official body. The archduke chose his ministers
from the majority groups in the assembly and proceeded to govern in
accordance with English parliamentary practice.
The assembly now turned its attention to the framing of the constitu·
tion. As a substructure on which the edifice of the constitution should
rest, i t seemed logical and necessary to begin by laying down the fundamental
rights of the German people; and so, for three precious months, the
assembly discussed the questions of national citizenship, of equality before
the law, of an independent judiciary, of the freedom of the press, of religion,
of education, of association; it discussed the necessity of popular
representation in the separate states, of a new organization for the local
communes, and of a new canon law for the established church. Professors
and lawyers vied with one another in the spinning of wordy
·arguments and
in the analysis of abstract principles. By the time the substructure was
completed, October was half gone and conditions throughout Europe had
radically changed. Thanks to the loyalty of their soldiers and bureaucrats,
the German princes were beginning to stamp out the fires of revolution
and to recover their breath and courage.
\Vith its prestige diminishing from week to week, the assembly began,
in the latter days of October, to frame the political structure of the proposed
federation. It was confronted with two most important questions:
( 1 ) What territories should b e included within the federal union? ( ,.) By
whom and under what title should the executive power be exercised? On
the first question the assembly sharply divided into two parties: those who
wished to include Austria and those who favored the exclusion of Austria

122

suffrage, one deputy for every 50,000 inhabitants, to the National Assembly
which was to meet at Frankfort on May 18. The response was general and
enthusiastic. The princes and their governments, panic-stricken by the
sudden revolutionary upsurge, attempted no interference. Bohemia alone,
where the Czech majority resisted any closer union with Germany, declined
to send deputies.
The National Assembly met at Frankfort on the day appointed. There
were nearly 600 deputies. Almost all the prominent liberal politicians of
every German state had been elected, and nearly all were middle class
intellectuals-historians, professors, theologians, jurists, and journalistseager
to air their views in eloquent speeches. The first important question
to come up for consideration concerned the form of the provisional government
which should govern Germany until the constitution should be
finished. After a lOng debate, lasting throughout the month of June, the
assembly invested Archduke John of Austria, long known as an enemy of
the Metternich system, with full executive powers under the title of Imperial
Vicar. On July 12, when the archduke took the oath of office, the
Federal Diet which had been in continuous session at Frankfort sillce ISlG,
ceased to exist as a recognized official body. The archduke chose his ministers
from the majority groups in the assembly and proceeded to govern in
accordance with English parliamentary practice.
The assembly now turned its attention to the framing of the constitu·
tion. As a substructure on which the edifice of the constitution should
rest, i t seemed logical and necessary to begin by laying down the fundamental
rights of the German people; and so, for three precious months, the
assembly discussed the questions of national citizenship, of equality before
the law, of an independent judiciary, of the freedom of the press, of religion,
of education, of association; it discussed the necessity of popular
representation in the separate states, of a new organization for the local
communes, and of a new canon law for the established church. Professors
and lawyers vied with one another in the spinning of wordy
·arguments and
in the analysis of abstract principles. By the time the substructure was
completed, October was half gone and conditions throughout Europe had
radically changed. Thanks to the loyalty of their soldiers and bureaucrats,
the German princes were beginning to stamp out the fires of revolution
and to recover their breath and courage.
\Vith its prestige diminishing from week to week, the assembly began,
in the latter days of October, to frame the political structure of the proposed
federation. It was confronted with two most important questions:
( 1 ) What territories should b e included within the federal union? ( ,.) By
whom and under what title should the executive power be exercised? On
the first question the assembly sharply divided into two parties: those who
wished to include Austria and those who favored the exclusion of Austria

123

powers from the consent of the people, for the loose confederation of
princes set up by the Congress of Vienna. We shall nOW drop back to
March, 1 848, and trace another episode in the revolutionary movement.
The Revolution in Prussia.-Early in March, .1848, Frederick William
IV began to be seriously disturbed by reports of revolutionary agitation
in south and west Germany and in various parts of Prussia. On
March ' 5 his uneasiness reached the state of panic when news arrived that
Metternich, the Austrian chancellor and stanch defender of the statlls quo,
had been driven from office by a popular outbreak in Vienna and forced to
seek safety in flight. On March 18 a royal proclamation was posted on the
walls of public buildings at Berlin, in which Frederick William announced
( 1 ) that he was summoning the United Diet (p. 92) for April 2 for
consultation in regard to the convocation of a national assembly for Prussia,
( 2 ) that he would promote to the best of his ability the creation of a
national assembly for all of Germany, and ( 3 ) that he favored the establishment
of constitutional government in every German state. In the
afternoon of the 1 8th people crowded into the public square in front of
the royal castle, raising cheers for the king, who appeared twice on his
balcony to bow acknowledgments. All was peaceful until troops undertook
to press the crowd back in orde< to clear the approaches to the castle; then
the sound of two shots from the ranks of the soldiery threw the crowd into
a frenzy of excitement. A melee ensued, in which cavalry and infantry
threw themselves upon the people. Thereupon the populace of Berlin rose
in insurrection. Barricades were thrown up in the streets, and fighting continued
throughout the night.
While the troops were methodically overthrowing the barricades and
crushing the insurrection, the king was in a state of intense excitement,
bordering on dementia. At daybreak on the 19th he ordered the troops to
cease firing and to withdraw from the city; and with mutterings of disgust
the commanding officers obeyed. The royal castle was thus left unprotected,
and the king was completely at the mercy of the armed populace.
No attempt was made to harm him physically, but his pride was humbled
and his prestige was reduced to the level of the gutter by a spectacle which
he was forced to witness. Bedded in flowers and crowned with laurel, but
with their wounds laid bare, the mutilated corpses of those who had fallen
in the fight with the royal troops were brought into the courtyard of the
castle. Shouts were raised for the king; and Frederick William, half-dead
with worry and fright, descended and stood with uncovered head beside
the ghastly display.
The last and most extraordinary act in this tragedy of humiliated royalty
was played on March 21, when Frederick William on horseback, and wearing
the old German colors-red, black, and gold-which since , 8 ' 5 had
been so dear to the patriots and so odious to the princes, led a procession

124

through the streets of Berlin. At various points along the way 'he stopped
and made speeches to the crowds, expatiating upon the duties of leadership
laid upon him by the common danger and asking the people for their con·
fidence. -
The excitement of the "March Days" at Berlin now subsided and the
king was free to proceed with the progressive measures which he had prom·
ised. On April 2 the United Diet met and drafted the regulations for the
election of the Prussian National Assembly 4 on the basis of universal manhood
suflrage. The elections took place without mishap, and on May 2 2
the National Assembly convened at Berlin. To i t the king submitted a
constitution which he had already drafted in consultation with his minis·
ters. The assembly found this constitution antidemocratic and set about
drafting another. Then the fundamental misunderstanding came out into
the open. The king had never regarded the. National Assembly as a sov·
ereign body, deriving its powers from lhe will of the people, -but as an
advisory body only, which should collaborate with him in making the
constitution. As an anointed prince, he had no intention of surrendering
the sovereign power which he exercised by divine right.
So the assembly found itself in continual conflict with the king. In this
conflict there were many incidents, but these need not be described here.
Time and tide were on the side of the king. By November, 1848, after a
lapse of six months, the revolutionary movement was beginning to lose its
force throughout Central Europe, and the old ideas were again pressing
for recognition. Encouraged by the turn of the tide, as well as by the
steadfast loyalty of the army and bureaucracy, and incidentally of the peasantry,
Frederick William eventually made up his mind to get rid of the
assembly. On November 8'10 he displayed the mailed fist by bringing
troops back to Berlin and declaring the city in a state of siege. On December
5 he formally dissolved the l'.'ational Assembly and the police dispersed
the deputies.
But Frederick William, having put his hand to the plow, was resolved
not to look back-at any rate, not all the way back. On December 6 he
granted his subjects a constitution. It provided for a bicameral parliament,
which was to meet in the spring of 1849 and collaborate with him in mak·
ing such changes in the constitution as were deemed necessary. During
most of 1849 the work of revision went on, various groups of royal advisers
participating. On January 3', 1850, the constitution was promulgated in
its final form. Since it remained the constitution of Prussia down to '9,8,
it deserves a brief examination.
The Landtag, as the parliament was called, consisted of a house of lords
and a house of representatives. The lords were appointed by the king,
' This Prussian National Assembly must not be confused, of course, with the federal
National Assembly at Frankfort.

125

chiefly from the landed aristocracy; the representatives were in theory
elected by universal manhood suffrage, every male Prussian citizen over
twenty-four years old having the right to vote. In practice, however, universal
manhood suffrage was rendered nugatory by the "three class system"
of voting and by indirect election. For electoral purposes the kingdom
was divided into districts, and the qualified voters in each district were
divided into three classes on the basis of direct taxation. In the first class
were the few very wealthy men who paid a third of the direct taxes levied
in the district; in the second class were the moderately well-to-do men who
paid a third; in the third class were the remaining voters who paid a third.
Each class, voting separately, elected one third of the membership of the
district electoral college which in turn elected representatives to the Landtag.
By this system the preponderance of political power was given to the
wealthy. The vote of a single man in many a district had as much weight
in the choice of representatives as the votes of thousands of peasants or
artisans. No new taxes could be levied by the king without the approval of
the Landtag, but taxes once legalized could be collected until abolished by
vote of the Landtag with the sanction of the king. Thus the house of representatives
did not control the purse strings in Prussia as did the House of
Commons in England. The Prussian king might be irritated by the refusal
of the Landtag to approve new taxes, but his ministers could not be forced
out of office by such a refusal: the expenses of government could still be
defrayed from the taxes already in existence. The king chose and dismissed
his ministers at pleasure. Moreover, he retained the right of absolute veto
over enactments of the Landtag, and when the latter was not in session he
could issue ordinances that had the force of law.
With the promulgation of this constitution, the revolution may be said
to have ended in Prussia. The king still reigned by divine right and was
still something of an autocrat, but he had graciously allowed his people to
participate with him in the government of the realm. Frederick William
took a solemn oath never to abolish the constitution, and all his successors
considered themselves bound by that oath.
The Revolution in the Austrian Empire Outside Italy.-When the
news of the February Revolution at Paris reached Press burg the Magyar
Liberals seized the occasion to press their demands for home rule and for a
modernized constitution for Hungary (p. 9 5 ) . In a speech to the lower
chamber of the diet, on March 3, 1848, Louis Kossuth denounced the Metternich
system with passionate eloquence. "The suffocating vapor of a
heavy curse hangs over us," he cried; "from the charnel house of the cabinet
of Vienna comes a pestilential wind, benumbing our senses and deadening
our national spirit." Only by granting autonomy and free institutions to
the various nationalities of the Austrian Empire, he concluded, could the
emperor hope to retain the allegiance of his subjects. Under the spell of

126

Kossuth's eloquence, the lower chamber of the diet voted an address to the
emperor, embodying the demands of the Liherals.
The scene now shifts to Vienna. Here the provincial Diet of Lower
Austria 5 happened to be scheduled to meet on March '3. Hitherto the
meetings of this provincial diet had hardly been noticed by the general
public; but this time it was no sooner in session than masses of the city
populace, led by students of the university, invaded the hall, shouting for
reform. Kossuth's "charnel house" speech was read and his proposals, put
in the form of a motion, were carried by acclamation. The leading members
of the diet were compelled to place themselves at the head of a
delegation, which proceeded to the emperor's palace to present the demands
of the people. Meanwhile the crowds in the street became denser
and more excited. Troops were brought up. Fighting broke out and there
was some bloodshed. Here and there the mob broke into the palace, shouting
"Down with Metternich!" Late in the night of March '3-'4 the aged
diplomat and statesman, who for thirty-nine years had been the incarnation
of reaction in Central Europe, resigned his high office and sought safety in
flight." The new ministry, composed of frightened bureaucrats, granted all
of the popular demands-freedom of the press, a National Guard, and a
constitution.
The fall of Metternich greatly acc.elerated the national movement in
Hungary. Under the influence of Kossuth, the diet passed the famous
"March Laws" which transformed Hungary from a medieval to a modern
state. The "March Laws" provided for a responsible ministry in the English
sense, annual meetings of the diet at Budapest instead of Pressburg;
triennial elections, extension of the franchise to every male citizen owning
proper.ty to the value of about $' 50, abolition of feudal dues and services
owed the nobility by the peasants, equal taxation, equality of religions,
liberty of the press, trial by jury, establishment of a National Guard, and
Hungarian control of the army, the finances, and foreign affairs. On March
3' the . emperor, unable to do otherwise, gave his consent to the arrangement,
and the Hungarian government under the new constitution shortly
began to function at Budapest. Thus, with remarkable celerity and without
bloodshed, Hungary had become, for all practical purposes, an independent
nation. That she so understood the matter was shown by the
creation of a national army with a national flag, the establishment of a
5 Lower Austria was a province of the empire which happened to have Vienna for
its capital. There were other provinces, each with its capital city and its diet of estates.
Examples: Upper Austria, with Linz as its capital city; Styria, with Graz as its capital
city. etc.
6 Metternich made his way to England where he received a warm welcome from his
old friend, the Duke of \Vellington, and from other leaders of London society. He
returned to Vienna in 1 8 52 and, though not restored to office, resumed his high place
in Viennese society. He died in 1859, in his eighty"seventh year.

127

paper currency, and the appointment of Hungarian ambassadors to foreign
countries. The only connection that remained with Austria was dynastic:
the Emperor of Austria was at the same time King of Hungary.
Meanwhile in the Kingdom of Bohemia, where nationalist sentiment
had long been brewing, the Czechs were following in the footsteps of the
Magyars of Hungary. Deputations to the emperor demanded local au·
tonomy, a diet to meet annually at Prague, and the familiar liberal reforms
relating to language, the press, taxation, and religion. On March 24 the
emperor, unable to contest the matter, conceded all that was asked.
At Vienna, on April 25, the ministry published the promised constitu·
tion, which was applicable to all the Austrian dominions except Hungary
and Lombardy.Venetia. It provided for a parliament of two houses : the
upper house was to consist of princes and great landowners, nominated by
the crown; the lower house, of representatives chosen by limited suffrage
and indirect election. To the parliament the imperial ministers were to be
responsible, and to the constitution the National Guard and all the officials
of the empire were to take an oath of fidelity. But the populace of Vienna,
led by students and professors, was dissatis6ed with a granted constitution,
an aristocratic upper house, limited suffrage; and indirect election. On
May 1 5 there was another riot, during which a popular deputation broke
into a meeting of the imperial cabinet and extorted a promise from the
ministry to convoke a national assembly, elected by universal manhood suffrage,
to revise the constitution in a democratic sense.
The National Assembly, duly elected, met at Vienna on July 22. Of the
383 deputies, 92 were peasants; nearly all the others belonged to the middle
class. Less than half of them spoke German as their native tongue, and
measures had to be translated before votes could be taken. Promptly the
ministerial constitution was relegated to the realm of limbo, and the as·
sembly set about drafting another. But the task was never finished. After
a session of nearly eight months, the National Assembly was forcibly dis·
solved (March 7, 1849) by a rehabilitated imperial government. The only
work of enduring value accomplished by the assembly was the abolition of
the feudal dues and services owed the nobility by the peasants.
The rehabilitation of the imperial government which began as early as
June, 1848, was made possible by the loyalty of the imperial army and
bureaucracy and by the inability of the various nationalities to agree among
themselves on the division of the fruits of victory. By playing off one
nationality against another and by intervening at the proper moment, the
emperor was able to crush or slowly wear down the forces of revolution and
eventually to emerge triumphant. It was the age·old policy of divide et
imper. ( divide and rule) , which, since the time of the Roman Caesars, has
been familiar to autocrats who govern heterogeneous populations.
The first opportunity for imperial intervention between two quarreling

128

paper currency, and the appointment of Hungarian ambassadors to foreign
countries. The only connection that remained with Austria was dynastic:
the Emperor of Austria was at the same time King of Hungary.
Meanwhile in the Kingdom of Bohemia, where nationalist sentiment
had long been brewing, the Czechs were following in the footsteps of the
Magyars of Hungary. Deputations to the emperor demanded local au·
tonomy, a diet to meet annually at Prague, and the familiar liberal reforms
relating to language, the press, taxation, and religion. On March 24 the
emperor, unable to contest the matter, conceded all that was asked.
At Vienna, on April 25, the ministry published the promised constitu·
tion, which was applicable to all the Austrian dominions except Hungary
and Lombardy.Venetia. It provided for a parliament of two houses : the
upper house was to consist of princes and great landowners, nominated by
the crown; the lower house, of representatives chosen by limited suffrage
and indirect election. To the parliament the imperial ministers were to be
responsible, and to the constitution the National Guard and all the officials
of the empire were to take an oath of fidelity. But the populace of Vienna,
led by students and professors, was dissatis6ed with a granted constitution,
an aristocratic upper house, limited suffrage; and indirect election. On
May 1 5 there was another riot, during which a popular deputation broke
into a meeting of the imperial cabinet and extorted a promise from the
ministry to convoke a national assembly, elected by universal manhood suffrage,
to revise the constitution in a democratic sense.
The National Assembly, duly elected, met at Vienna on July 22. Of the
383 deputies, 92 were peasants; nearly all the others belonged to the middle
class. Less than half of them spoke German as their native tongue, and
measures had to be translated before votes could be taken. Promptly the
ministerial constitution was relegated to the realm of limbo, and the as·
sembly set about drafting another. But the task was never finished. After
a session of nearly eight months, the National Assembly was forcibly dis·
solved (March 7, 1849) by a rehabilitated imperial government. The only
work of enduring value accomplished by the assembly was the abolition of
the feudal dues and services owed the nobility by the peasants.
The rehabilitation of the imperial government which began as early as
June, 1848, was made possible by the loyalty of the imperial army and
bureaucracy and by the inability of the various nationalities to agree among
themselves on the division of the fruits of victory. By playing off one
nationality against another and by intervening at the proper moment, the
emperor was able to crush or slowly wear down the forces of revolution and
eventually to emerge triumphant. It was the age·old policy of divide et
imper. ( divide and rule) , which, since the time of the Roman Caesars, has
been familiar to autocrats who govern heterogeneous populations.
The first opportunity for imperial intervention between two quarreling

129

capital. The Vienna government now threw off the mask. On October 3
the emperor declared the Hungarian Diet dissolved and appointed Jellachich
to the full command of all the imperial troops in Hungary. Thus
the war began.
But Jellachich's march on Budapest was not destined to be a mere military
parade. The Hungarian Diet set up a committee of national defense
headed by Kossuth, an army was raised somehow, and Jellachich was repulsed
and forced to retire from the soil of Hungary. To retrieve the
military situation, it became necessary for the Vienna government to throw
its own forces into the struggle; but when the minister of war ordered the
regiments in the capital to set out for the scene of warfare, some of them
mutinied and fired on other regiments which remained loyal. In support
of the mutineers, the populace of Vienna rose in revolt, seeing in the war
an effort on the part of the imperial government to suppress the revolution
and restore the old regime. The minister of war was sought out by the
mob and brutally murdered, the Emperor Ferdinand I fled with his court
to Olmiitz in Moravia, and for three weeks Vienna was at the mercy of
the radical elements. For all practical purposes the western half of the
Austrian Empire had ceased to have any government at all.
This situation, of course, could not last. Down from Prague came Prince
Windischgratz at the hcad of a loyal army. On October 3', after a siege
and bombardment of five days, he reduced Vienna to submission, proclaimed
martial law, and executed the ringleaders of the revolt. Thus
abruptly the revolution in the Austrian provinces was brought to an end.
A new ministry now came into ollice at Vienna, headed by Prince Felix
Schwartzenberg, a man of iron will and great ability, who governed thenceforth
as an autocrat. Schwartzenberg laid down as his political program 'the
restoration of the emperor's authority and the establishment of a unified
and indivisible Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna by a loyal bureaucracy.
His first act was the deposition of the weak-minded and almost imbecile
Emperor Ferdinand and the enthronement (December 2, 1848) of Francis
Joseph, a youth of eighteen. The purpose of this maneuver was to give a
show of legality to the nullification of those concessions which Ferdinand
had made to the Hungarian nation. Promises made by Ferdinand, it was
held, were not binding on his successor. Freed thus from embarrassing
commitments, Schwartzenberg set about restoring the imperial authority
in Hungary.
The Magyars braced themselves for the struggle and gave a good account
of themselves. In April, 1849, they drove the invaders back across the Austrian
frontier. Then, in a frenzy of excitement, the diet deposed the Hapsburg
Dynasty and declared Hungary an independent republic. But at this
juncture Francis Joseph appealed to Czar Nicholas of Russia for assistance,
and the czar responded with alacrity. Russian armies poured into Hungary

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from the east and narth, while Austrians again advanced fram the west.
Assailed from three directians by 'overwhelming numbers, the Magyars
faught recklessly but hapelessly. On August ' 3, 1 849, the 'only cansiderable
Magyar army remaining in the field capitulated ta the Russian cammander
at Vihlgas. The czar turned the rebels aver ta the vengeance ,Of
the Austrian gavernment al)d withdrew his armies, asking na reward or
advantages in return far his services : he thaught ,Of himself as a fire warden
wha had helped ta stamp aut a dangerous canflagratian. The Austrian
gavernment shat ,Or hanged thirteen generals and abaut a hundred prominent
paliticians, and candemned several hundred 'others ta life imprisanment.
7 The Kingdam ,Of Hungary was deprived ,Of all its traditianal ,Or
canstitutianal privileges and reduced ta the status ,Of a pravince gaverned
from Vienna. Thus ended the revolution in the An??tTi::m Rmpire outside
Italy.
The Revolution in Italy.-On March '7, 1848, news reached Milan that
Metternich had fallen. That night the papulace ,Of the city flung itself
with fury upan the Austrian garrisan cammanded by Marshal Radetzky.
For five days the fight went an. From the surraunding cauntry valunteers
jained the tawnsmen, and swift messengers were sent ta Turin for assistance.
On March 22 Marshal Radetzky, his supplies exhausted and his
troaps demaralized, began ta evacuate the city and retreat taward the east.
Meanwhile the news ,Of Metternich's fall had reached Venice alsa, and
hard an the heels ,Of the news came tidings ,Of the successful revalt ,Of the
Milanese. Thereupan Daniel Manin, a lawyer, roused the papulace ,Of
Venice, 'organized a civic guard, and seized the arsenal where military supplies
were stored. The Austrian garrisan, demoralized by the news from
Vienna, was easily farced ta evacuate the city, and an Austrian fleet statianed
in the harbor sailed away. Thus withaut blaadshed, Venice was
freed from the Austrian incubus and proclaimed a republic.
All aver Lombardy and Venetia the provincial cities fallawed the example
,Of the twa capitals. The dukes ,Of Parma and Modena saught safety in
flight. In Tuscany, where the grand duke had but recently granted a canstitutian,
papular pressure farced the government ta declare war an Austria;
and fram Sardinia-Piedmont, the Papal States, and even fram Naples, valunteers
paured in streams inta northern Italy. It loaked as if the Italian
peaple were rising en masse to drive Austria from the peninsula.
Much depended an the attitude of Charles Albert, King of SardiniaPiedmant,
wha alone among the Italian princes had an efficient army. In
his youth, as Prince of Carignano, he had been accounted a liberal, but
on his accessian ta the thrane in 183' he was caught in the toils ,Of reaction.
Canfronted naw by a critical situatian, he vacillated and hesitated
't Kossuth escaped to Turkey. Two years later he toured -England and the United
States, stirring immense audiences with his story of Hungary's sorrows,

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as was his wont; but on March 23 h e declared war on Austria and offered
his assistance to Lombardy and Venetia. Had he marched at once he
might have destroyed the demoralized army of Radetzky as it straggled
across the country toward the fortresses of the famous Quadrilateral. But
Charles Albert was afraid that he was playing into the hands of revolution,
afraid that as soon as he and his army were in Lombardy a republic would
spring up behind him at Turin. He prayed continually for light and consulted
a holy nun on the possibility of success. Thus days passed before he
crossed the Ticino River into Lombardy. Meanwhile Radetzky had ensconced
himself securely in the Quadrilateral.
A glance at the map will reveal the military importance of the Quadrilateral.
From Lake Garda the Mincia flows south to the Po. At the point
of egress from the lake lies the fortified town of Peschiera, and where it
enters the marshes of the Po stand the formidable defenses of Mantua.
The Mindo thus offers a line of resistance between Lombardy and Venetia,
one flank on Lake Garda and the Alps and the other flank on the marshes
of the Po. The distance between Mantua and Peschiera is about twenty
miles. Parallel to the Mincio flows the Adige, which descends through the
Brenner Pass. At the point where the river issues from the pass stands
Verona with its fortifications. Verona was important because it commanded
the pass through which supplies and reinforcements might reach
Radetzky. The distance between Peschiera and Verona is about twelve
miles. Lower down the Adige is Legnano, completing the quadrilateral.
The distance between Verona and Legnano is about twenty-five miles;
that between Legnano and Mantua, twenty.
Thus the campaign was marked out for the Italians by physical features
and the location of the fortresses. Charles Albert, after having forced the
passage of the Mincio, would turn northward and seize Verona, thereby
cutting Radetzky's lines of communications. To protect the rear and the
flanks of the king's army during the progress of the operation, Tuscan
troops and volunteer bands would besiege and neutralize the other three
fortresses. Hemmed in thus on all sides, Radetzky could be worn down
and forced to capitulate.
But the successful execution of such a plan of campaign required efficient
leadership, and Charles Albert was a mediocrity. He moved slowly
and made blunders. At the beginning of May he assaulted the Austrian
lines covering Verona, failed to break through, became discouraged, and
ordered his army to fall back. This reverse was the signal for many of the
volunteer bands to disband and go home.
Meanwhile politics was creating dissensions among the Italians. In case
of victory over Austria, what form of government should be set up in Lombardy,
Parma, Modena, and Venetia? Popular leaders were suggesting that
plebiscites be held in these territories with a view to fusion with Sardinia-

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Piedmont. But the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Naples complained
that they were not sending their armies against Austria for the
purpose of enlarging Sardinia-Piedmont. The pope's position as both
temporal ruler and head of the Catholic Church was proving to be a source
of embarrassment. As temporal ruler he shared the national feeling of
dislike for Austria, but as head of the Catholic Church he must stand
above national sentiments. Pius IX greatly feared that the Austrian clergy
would repudiate his authority and set up an antipope. The mere thought
of such a schism made His Holiness shudder. At the end of April he issued
an allocution, or formal statement, in which he condemned the war and
proclaimed his equal love of all peoples. The King of Naples, pretending
that his government was threatened by a domestic revolution, recalled his
small army from northern Italy, and shortly afterwards restored absolutism
in his .realm.
These defections from the fighting forces now began to embarrass the
plans of Charles Albert. While he hesitated, an Austrian relieving force
burst through the passes of the Alps. Thus encouraged, Marshal Radetzky
took the offensive and, on July 15, 1848, administered a decisive defeat to
the Piedmontese Army at Custozza. Charles Albert led his demoralized
troops back-to Milan, where, on August 9, he signed an armistice.
The news of the armistice spread rapidly throughout Italy, and everywhere
the rank and file of the people vented their wrath on the leaders
who had brought the Italian cause to shame. In Piedmont the disappointment
took the form of an eager desire to renew the war. Yielding to popu??
lar pressure, Charles Albert denounced the armistice in March, 1849, and
set his army in motion again. But the campaign lasted only five days. At
Novara on March 23 he was met by Radetzky and soundly beaten. Believing
that better terms of peace could be made if another king were on
the throne, he abdicated that night in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel
II, and, passing in disguise through the Austrian lines, he betook himself
to Oporto in Portugal, where he died a few months later, a broken
and disappointed man. Austria offered Victor Emmanuel easy terms of
peace if he would abolish the constitution which his father had granted,
but he positively refused to do so, preferring hard terms to dishonorable
ones. This refusal of the young king to waver in his loyalty to constitutional
government made him the brightest hope of the moderate liberals
throughout Italy.
Meanwhile, at Rome Pius IX kept up for a while the pretense of governing
in accordance with the constitution which he had granted; but the
allocution which he had issued at the end of April, 1848, had destroyed
his popularity and aroused distrust of his sincerity. In November rioters
murdered his prime minister and fired shots at the papal palace on the
Quirinal Hill. Fearing for his life, the Holy Father fled from the city and

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took refuge across the Neapolitan frontier a t Gaeta. A t Rome the radic.!s
elected a National Assembly, which met early in February, 1849, and
established the Roman Republic. On receiving the news of the disastrous
defeat of Charles Albert at Novara, and fearful of an attack by Austria, the
assembly intrusted supreme power to a triumvirate, or committee of three,
headed by the famous republican, Mazzini. At the end of April Garibaldi,
a picturesque leader of guerrilla bands, arrived with his "legion" and
assumed the direction of the military defense of the infant republic.
From Gaeta Pius IX appealed to the Catholic states to restore his temporal
power, and Spain, Austria, Naples, and'France hastened to respond,
each actuated by ulterior motives. In France President Louis Napoleon,
who was already revolving in his mind the pOSSibility of becoming emperor,
needed the support of the Catholic clergy; moreover, he considered it to
the interest of France to checkmate further Austrian moves in Italy. At
the end of April, 1849, a French expedition under General Oudinot landed
at Civita Vecchia and began the march on Rome. The Roman republicans
were naturally suspicious of the invaders and treated them as enemies.
Skirmishes were fought, and the French were constrained to retire. l\1eanwhile
an Austrian Army advanced from the north, a Neapolitan Army
from the south, and a Spanish Army landed at the mouth of the Tiber.
But the French were ultimately given a free hand to deal with the situation
as they deemed best. On June 3 Oudinot, having received reinforcements
from France, resumed the fighting. The defense of the Eternal City
was gallantly sustained by Garibaldi and his companions-in-arms until the
end of the month; then further resistance became impossible. Mazzini
escaped by means of an English passport, and Garibaldi led a handful of
men eastward hoping to reach Venice. Only July 3 the French made their
formal entry into Rome and re-established the temporal power of the
pope.s From Gaeta, where he continued to reside until April, 1850, Pius
IX let is be known that he had lost all patience with constitutional government
and that when he returned to Rome it would be as an absolute
sovereign.
Venice alone now remained unsubdued by the forces of reaction. After
the defeat of Charles Albert at Novara the Austrians were free to turn their
attention to this task. For four months the valiant city withstood the siege;
but, torn by factions, afflicted with cholera, and cut off from all supplies,
the Venetians finally realized that their struggle was hopeless. On August
25, 1849, Venice capitulated and Austrian officials took over the government.
With the fall of Venice the victory of the reactionary forces was complete.
In the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Tuscany, Parma,
B Except for one brief interval French troops remained in Rome for the protectioQ
of the pope until August, 1870'

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Modena, and Venetia, as well as in Bohemia and Hungary, the old system
was restored and the old rulers resumed the exercise of their absolute authority.
Only in Piedmont was constitutional government maintained, and
there alone lay the hope of Italian liberals.
Now "that the emperor's authority had been restored throughout the
Austrian Empire and the administration had been centralized at Vienna,
Schwartzenberg was ready to concentrate his attention on the restoration
of Austria to her dominant position in the German Confederation. So we
turn back to Germany for the story of what happened there.
The Humiliation of Prussia at Olmiitz.-It will be recalled that Frederick
William IV, after dissolving the Prussian National Assembly, granted
his subjects a constitution and then allowed the bicameral parliament
established by the constitution to collaborate with him in making such
revisions as were deemed necessary. In regard to the federal movement his
conduc! was the same. Having rejecLell the imperial crown offered him by
the Frankfort Assembly, he drafted a federal constitution which provided
for a bicameral parliament-an upper house to represent the governments
of the various member statcs and a lower house, elected by the "three class
system" a, in Prussia, to represent the people. At its first session this parliament
was to collaborate with the governments of the member states in
making such revisions in the draft as were deemed necessary. The elections
took place on January 3', 1850, in the states which accepted the plan, and
the parliament met at Erfurt on March 20. But representatives from Austria
and the four minor kingdoms (Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Wiirttemberg
) were conspicuous for their absence: Prussia's lead was followed
by only twenty-eight states, and some of these were halting between two
opinions. In a session which lasted from March 20 to April 29, the parliament
elaborated a constitution for a restricted federation made up of Prussia
and the petty states that adhered to the union.
The efforts of Prussia to assume the leadership of the federal movement
were watched by Schwartzenberg with jealous and disapproving eyes. At
his instigation, while the Erfurt parliament was still in session, the Austrian
government, as the power which held the presidency of the old federal
Diet, issued a summons to all the German governments to send envoys to
Frankfort on May io, 1850, and thus revive the old confederation. On
this day appointed envoys from Austria, the four minor kingdoms, HesseCassel,
and four other small states made their appearance at Frankfort;
but Prussia emphatically refused to obey the summons, claiming that the
old confederation was as dead as a doornail; and Prussia's lead was followed
by most of the petty states that had just formed the restricted federation at
Erfurl. Arguments and counterarguments were exchanged between Berlin
and Vienna, but the controversy was not one to be decided by logic:
Frederick William was in the mood to fight rather than submit to Austrian

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dictation. Schwartzenberg might easily have precipitated an armed conflict
by demanding categorically that the restricted federation be dissolved; but
he chose instead to confuse the issue in such a way as to make it appear
that Frederick "Villiam was opposing the monarchical principle and aiding
revolution. Maneuvered into such a false position, the king would prob·
ably falter in his resolution to fight, and war could be avoided. Soon an
incident developed which Schwartzenberg was quick to turn to advantage.
Of all the princes of Germany, the Elector of Hesse·Cassel, whose terri·
tory incidentally lay athwart the military roads that connected the two sections
of the Prussian kingdom, had been least in sympathy with the
Liberal Movement of 1 848. He chafed under the restrictions imposed
upon him by a constitution, and was only awaiting an opportunity to break
his fetters and restore absolutism in his petty principality. Though he had
been compelled by his parliament to join the restricted federation headed
by Prussia, he was· not happy in the arrangement, because the Prussian king
was pledged to constitutional government. In the reactionary movement
headed by Austria, he found his opportunity. Acting under Austrian insti·
gation, he dismissed his liberal ministers, dissolved his parliament, and pro·
ceeded to levy taxes arbitrarily. When the officers of his army and the
officials of his civil service reSigned in protest, thus paralyzing his government,
he appealed to the .revived Diet at Frankfort for assistance against
his rebellious subjects. In response to his appeal the diet resolved to send
the military assistance requested. But Prussia, as head of the restricted fed·
eration of which Hesse·Cassel was still technically a member, stood morally
pledged to protect the rights of the Hessian people. "V auld Frederick
William accept the obligation and send Prussian troops to fight Austrian
and Bavarian troops in Hesse·Cassel? Conflicting influences swayed the
king this way and that. Friends of absolutism were quick to point out that
the employment of the Prussian Army on behalf of the Hessians would
make the king an accomplice of revolution; bolder and more patriotic
spirits, on the other hand, protested that Prussia could not afford to abdicate
her leadership in Germany' and evade her responsibilities in the face
of an Austrian threat. Caught between the horns of the dilemma, Frederick
William faltered, as Schwartzenberg had expected him to do, and
acted halfheartedly. He sent Prussian troops to protect the military roads
across Hesse·Cassel, but he proclaimed loudly while doing so that he was
not an accomplice of revolution.
Taking advantage of the king's embarrassment, Schwartzenberg on No·
vember 9 demanded categorically that Frederick William dissolve the
restricted federation, recognize the Diet at Frankfort, and withdraw his
troops from Hesse·CasseL The king conceded the first point, but hesitated
about the other two. Thereupon Schwartzenberg set Austrian troops in

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motion and sent an ultimatum to Berlin, demanding that the Prussian
troops be withdrawn from Hesse-Cassel within forty-eight hours_ Frederick
William, still embarrassed by the charge that he was abetting revolution,
and aware that his army was in no condition to take the field against Austria,
yielded and dispatched Manteuffel, one of his ministers, to Olmiitz
in Moravia to arrange matters in a personal interview with Schwartzenberg.
On November 29, 1850, Manteuffel signed the "Punctuation of Olmiitz"
which marked the complete humiliation of Prussia. Under the presidency
of Austria the old diet began to function once more at Frankfort, and to it
Frederick William sent as his envoy Otto von Bismarck, a notorious reactionary,
to take care of Prussia's interest there. All that Prussia had been
able to salvage from the wreck of her ambitious designs to unite the German
states under her leadership was the Zollverein, or Customs Union,
which continued to expand by the addition of new members, but from
which Austria was jealously excluded.
Conc!uson.-With the humiliation of Prussia at Olmiitz the revolutionary
movement in Central Europe may be said to end. The failure of the
movement can be attributed to a number of factors, among which the following
were perhaps the most potent: ( 1 ) The anny and the bureaucracy,
and usually the peasantry, remained loyal to the sovereign princes. ( 2 ) The
liberals who promoted the revolution were for the most part intellectuals,
inexperienced in politics and not very numerous in comparison to the rest
of the population. ( 3 ) The Industrial Revolution had not advanced very
far in Central Europe; absent from the struggle, therefore, were a numerous
working class and a powerful group of capitalists, which, when acting
together, have the potentialities necessary to cope successfully with absolute
monarchy. (4) In the Austrian Empire rival nationalities fell to fighting
one another and thus nullified their revolutionary efforts. ( 5 ) In Italy
the rulers of the various states were not interested in Italian unity, and the
liberals overestimated the ability of the Italian people to oust the Austrians
without foreign assistance. (6) In the background, finally, stood the dark
figure of Nicholas I, Czar of Russia, whose realm had escaped the revoTutionary
contagion. Nicholas was ready and eager, not only to intervene
with military force, as he did in the summer of 1849 to crush the Magyars,
but to rebuke and menace such princes as showed a momentary tendency
to accept the new order. The dread of Russian intervention in the
:lomestic affairs of Central Europe kept the liberals restrained and the
princes encouraged.
But, though the revolutionary movement was everywhere suppressed, it
had not been altogether without beneficial results. ( 1 ) In the Austrian
Empire the peasants had been freed from feudal dues and services; ( 2 ) in
Hungary the "March Laws," though abrogated by imperial decree, were

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not forgotten by the proud Magyars, and were made in 1867 the basis of
the Ausgleich, or Compromise, by which Hungary acquired autonomy; and
( 3 ) in Prussia there was now a parliament. (4) Even the attempt of the
National Assembly at Frankfort (0 give Germany a federal constitution,
though unsuccessful, was a memory which continued to be an inspiration
to German liberals.

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