The Revolutions of 1848

Podcast Transcript

In 1848, a series of Revolutions took place against monarchies across Europe.

The revolutions were not part of an organized effort. They were spontaneous and often quite different.

Although ultimately unsuccessful, the Revolutions sparked social change across multiple countries, improving the lives of some and strengthening the power of others.

Learn about the Revolutions of 1848 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Before getting into the Revolutions of 1848, it is essential to understand the political environment in Europe that preceded them.

After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, much of Europe was in political chaos. Napoleon had installed puppet governments in many of the countries he had conquered.

After Napoleon’s exile, conservative monarchies moved to restore their former systems and suppress revolutionary ideas. The Congress of Vienna was central to this effort, aiming to reverse many of Napoleon’s reforms and re-establish dynastic legitimacy.

This led to some frustration amongst the general population when the world returned to its previous order.

The French Revolution introduced new ideological and economic ideas to the lower classes, leading to increased industrialization and urbanization, the adoption of modern agricultural practices, rapid population growth, and the rise of liberalism.

In response to these new, liberal ideologies, governments across Europe became repressive to prevent the spread of ideas such as nationalism, liberalism, and radicalism.

Adding to the frustration with repressive governments, in 1845 and 1847, much of Europe faced an economic crisis. This led to food shortages and an industrial recession. Civil unrest was growing, and the masses were gaining revolutionary fervor.

In Central and Western Europe, people grew increasingly discontent with the existing political and economic systems, especially as conditions for the lower classes worsened.

A significant reason for this frustration was the struggle between traditional feudal systems and blossoming market economies.

In the countryside, people were desiring land ownership. Customary peasant rights, such as access to common land for acquiring resources were now denyed. An example of this was the difficulty of obtaining resources, such as wood, following the abolition of peasants’ rights to forests.

Peasants used violent and legal methods to attempt to reclaim land rights. People resorted to stealing resources such as wood from forests, filing lawsuits, and taking increasingly violent measures against feudal lords.

Labor exploitation also played a major role in the discontent towards the government and elites. Around this time, the population was growing rapidly, causing significant challenges for urban workers.

As the population rose and conditions in the countryside worsened, many people migrated to cities, leading to overpopulation. Overpopulation in cities led to a surplus o fworkers for the number of available jobs.

This led to a reduction of wages, leaving urban workers vulnerable to food shortages, a worsening of their social status, and a decline in their standard of living.

Additionally, most workers at this time were artisans, skilled craftmakers who earned their livelihoods through trade. By comparison, there were relatively few factory workers. The increase in machinery led many workers in the textile and metalworking industries to feel insecure about their future livelihoods.

Another group affected was the educated middle class. Unlike in countries such as Great Britain and the United States, mainland Europe was industrializing slowly.

However, the French Revolution created an environment that encouraged education for those seeking to improve their social status. This meant there were too many educated people and not enough jobs to employ them.

Additionally, many countries deliberately excluded the educated middle class from political offices. This meant that the educated middle class often ran into a brick wall, which prevented any real career development within the middle class.

All of these factors led to shared frustration among the middle class, urban workers, and rural peasants.

The failure of governments to address the population’s calls for reform became a significant catalyst for the Revolutions of 1848. This inability to respond to popular demands led many to believe that revolution was inevitable by the close of 1847.

In the 1840s, new political ideologies were developing that influenced the Revolutions of 1848. These ideologies focused on liberalism, nationalism, and radicalism.

In the 19th century, liberals formed a massive political bloc, but their beliefs varied. Generally, liberals supported equality before the law: the law provided protections and justice for everyone, regardless of class. They also supported civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to own property.

Liberals tended to prefer the creation of Constitutions to protect these rights. They also favored voting based on men who owned property.

In addition, liberals tended to favor the elimination of absolute monarchies and the adoption of constitutional monarchies, in which the monarchy’s power was bounded by a constitution and the consent of the people.

However, liberals feared engaging in a revolution due to fears of radical, violent mob movements taking over, like what occurred in the French Revolution.

Instead, they favored slower-moving political change and economic reform through the creation of free markets, public education, and parliaments. Through these measures, they felt more men could own property and enter politics.

This approach meant that when liberals gained political power, they tended to use it conservatively. This led to frustration with the radical left.

The radical left was a loose coalition of socialists and democrats. They are different from liberals because they favored universal male suffrage, or the idea that all men should vote regardless of whether they owned property or not. They also favored democratic governments over constitutional monarchies.

Another difference between the liberals and the radicals was that the radicals placed greater emphasis on the growth and stabilization of the working class.

The radical faction sought to narrow the divide between labor and capital; although the specific methods proposed differed, this fundamental objective was widely held.

Similar to liberals, radicalists opposed the existing government and were increasingly frustrated with religious authority. However, a key difference was that radicalists favored enacting these changes through Revolution.

The final group was the Nationalists. They wanted unity among people connected through shared language, religion, and culture. Nationalists also tended to favor annexing territory and appeals to patriotism.

Despite government interference and efforts to maintain political control over the electoral process, political participation did increase in the years leading up to 1848.

Nonetheless, people still had to be creative in their political participation, expressing their beliefs through activities such as publishing newspapers, reading, and writing.

Informal political groups formed, meeting in secret; illegal societies were established; and political rallies were held during public celebrations to circumvent the law. It was in this way that politics, though limited, become more accessible for all levels of society.

The first country to face revolution in 1848 was Italy. Beginning with a local revolt in Sicily in January of 1848. In Italy, the Revolution began as a Sicilian separatist movement.

Minor reforms were gradually implemented to appease revolutionaries. This proved ineffective, and the King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, granted a new, more liberal Constitution.

The most notable of the 1848 revolutions began in France. Like the rest of Europe, France was experiencing industrialization, which drastically reshaped its urban centers. This transformation was exacerbated by a severe food shortage.

These issues culminated in a widespread outbreak of revolts across France, in which middle-class liberals, merchants, and factory workers banded together, erected barricades in the streets, and demanded that the King step down. They also drafted a new Constitution, which extended the right to vote to every man and freed enslaved people in French territories.

Despite agreeing on their frustration with the current government, the various political groups in France soon began to argue with themselves over which changes they wanted to implement.

The middle class prioritized political change, seeking the right to be represented in government. The working class prioritized economic change, wanting more reliable food, housing, and work.

The middle-class liberals often abandoned the working class once the government addressed their own demands. This was because the middle-class sought to avoid the more radical institutional changes, such as a republican or socialist government, that the working class desired.

The division between the middle and working classes created an opportunity for monarchists and conservatives to prevail in elections. This shift in political power coincided with the government’s violent crackdown on protesters in June 1848, resulting in a total casualty count exceeding 10,000 people.

Ultimately, the 1848 French Revolution ended with the government destabilized and with Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte III, elected president in December.

Louis Napoleon promised the middle class stability and political rights, but did nothing for the workers. This decision proved costly, as Louis Napoleon III betrayed the middle class by staging a coup in 1851 and becoming Emperor under the Second French Republic in 1852.

The French Revolution of 1848 was critical in the spread of Revolutionary ideals to other countries.

Once news that a revolution had broken out in France spread, revolutionaries in other cities and countries were inspired to do the same.

Prominent examples of these uprisings occurred in territory under Austrian control. These movements tended to be nationalist in orientation, particularly in cases involving modern-day Hungary and Italy.

Hungary craved separation from the Habsburg Dynasty, whereas parts of the Italian Peninsula, such as Milan and Venice, sought to expel Austrian troops and influence from the region.

Ultimately, all of these revolutions were unsuccessful, with attempts at separation crushed by the Austrian authorities. Nonetheless, some positive outcomes came from the Revolutions.

One of the most important outcomes was the end of serfdom. Serfdom was a system in which peasants were legally bound to a lord’s land, required to provide labor or payments, and denied the freedom to move or fully control their own lives.

It was close to chattel slavery except people were tied to the land and whoever owned the land.

Serfs had few personal freedoms and essentially served their lords in exchange for basic food, protection, and housing.

The decision to abolish serfdom in Austria helped move the country toward a more modern society. Without serfdom, industry expanded, and society moved toward a free labor market. This change helped diffuse tensions, thereby preserving the monarchy’s rule.

Another country to experience a revolution in 1848 was the German Confederation, an organization of 39 German-speaking states. The lower classes in Germany revolted due to starvation and were inspired by the French Revolution occurring in Paris.

In Germany, a series of loosely coordinated protests occurred in 1848, aiming to implement more liberal policies. However, the established power structure ultimately crushed these movements as well.

Revolutionary fever continued to spread across Europe, with revolutions occurring in numerous other cities and states. Still, the ultimate result in every case was the ruling class making a few concessions while remaining in almost absolute power.

Despite so many people demanding change across Europe, the divide between middle-class liberals and radical workers is what ultimately led to their downfall. The weaknesses in the foundations of the Revolutions allowed elites and monarchs to exploit and capitalize on divisions within the Revolutions to solidify their authority.

In the long term, the legacy of 1848 was profound. Serfdom was abolished across much of central Europe, permanently altering rural society. Constitutionalism, though suppressed, became harder to ignore and reemerged later in more durable forms. Nationalism, tested and failed in 1848, would later shape the unification of Italy and Germany in the following decades.

Perhaps most importantly, the revolutions revealed both the possibilities and limits of popular uprising in an industrializing Europe. While not immediately successful, the revolutions of 1848 set the stage for the modernization reforms that would gradually capture the continent over the next century.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Research and writing for this episode were provided by THE… Olivia Ashe.

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