The Revolutions of 1848

 I have long wanted to read about the revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848. As an undergrad at St. John’s University, I took a nineteenth century European history course with the great Frank Coppa. Coppa was an expert on Italian unification and the papacy. He certainly knew his stuff. But as this topic hovered on the periphery of my reading intentions, it kept getting knocked farther away by more pressing topics and projects. Finally, in 2021 I got my hands on Mike Rapport’s 1848: Year of the Revolution. Rapport examines each of the affected countries, capturing their similarities and variations, and tying them together for the continental perspective. Not all of Europe was affected. The revolutions bypassed Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula. The only thing that has come as close to such a continental-wide revolution was the collapse of communism in 1989. 

Three big takeaways stand out for me as an historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. First, the revolutions were not solely political affairs of democrats and liberals challenging the ancient regimes. Of course, there was plenty of that, but the liberal elements were too deeply fractured in their approaches to constitutions, voting, nationalism, the role of the monarchy, the structure of society, etc. Radical urban workers, middle class liberals, reactionary aristocrats, and conservative peasants battled one another in this tumultuous year. Their divisive outlooks, suspicions, understandings, and proposed solutions sprung from the enormous social and economic changes upheavals that shook Europe. Enter the social question. Industrialization, urbanization, migration, factories replacing crafts, the deskilling of labor, class conflicts, radicalism -- all the things associated with Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the United States – played a significant role in both making 1848 happen, while, at the same time, undermining its chance of success. 

 

Second, as Rapport argues, 1848 shaped Europe and this did not change until the end of World War I. The Europe of 1914 with its long-simmering problems can trace its roots to 1848. Just to take one very important example, the question of nationalities and self-determination grows out of the conflicts of 1848. The year of revolution was the seedbed of German, Italian, and Romanian unification drives that achieved their goals in the following decades. Although less successful in other areas, 1848 nonetheless opened the nationality question among Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slavs, and some others, challenging the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. I think I better understand the Europe of 1914 thanks to this book.  

 

Finally, in addition to the internal divisions, a concerted and powerful conservative counterattack doomed the political revolutions. While 1848 produced some constitutional changes, reactionary monarchs squashed others, crushed insurrections, and reneged on promises of greater reform that they had made at the height of the revolution. Ultra conservative Franz Josef replaced the more wishy-washy and fearful Ferdinand II on the Hapsburg throne and asked Tsar Nicholas I to help defeat the Hungarian independence movement. After making some concessions to revolutionary movements, Prussian King William IV adopted a hardline approach. In France, where the revolutions started, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor’s nephew, rose to power. He mixed a conservative authoritarianism with a populist social and economic message.  Although this book was published in 2008 the rise of the man who would later become Napoleon III seems a frightening precursor to more recent years (as well as the 1930s).