TB Notes 54-55 - Leaking Dam and the Flood

Section #54

The Leaking Dam and the Flood: Domestic

• Conservatism gripped Europe after the fall of Napoleon.

  • Metternich aimed to restore dynasties to maintain order and balance

    • Habsburgs, Bourbons, English governing classes

  • Tsar Alexander of Russia was a wildcard

    • He was a dreamer, self-chosen world savior

    • Jacobin and liberal, he also wanted to bring Christianity into politics

    • Influenced writing of constitutions in France, Russia

  • Some south German states allowed representative G

  • Prussia even promised a representative assembly

• Leaders were fearful of revolution

  • Each sign of agitation was viewed as a revolution

  • Agitation driven underground, actually made worse by creating additional grievances

    • A vicious circle was set endlessly revolving

Reaction after 1815: France, Poland

• France of 1814 an uncomfortable peace

  • Unofficial vengeance of counterrevolutionaries

  • Rallied to Napoleon on his return from Elba

  • Royalist exasperated

    • “White terror”- after Bourbon monarchy regains power in 1815, upperclass youths murdered Bonapartists and republicans

    • Catholic mobs seized and killed Protestants

    • Chamber of Deputies- tiny electorate of 100,000 well to do landowners

      • More reactionary than royalists

    • King could not maintain stability

      • 1820 king’s nephew, the Duke de Berry, assassinated

      • Reaction deepened, until 1824 death of Louis XVIII

      • Charles X, brother of Louis XVIII, father of the Duke de Berry

        • First to emigrate in 1789 and form counterrevolution

        • After crowning, stamped out revolutionary republicanism, liberalism, and constitutionalism 

• Congress of Vienna creates a constitutional kingdom in Poland with Tsar Alexander as king

• Polish constitution

  • Wide suffrage

  • An elected diet

  • Napoleonic civil code

  • Freedom of press, religion, and use of Polish language

• Problems in Poland stemmed from the fact that Alexander hated to be disagreed with

  • Actual legislation did not allow for use of many of their freedoms

  • Elected diet feuded with Alexander’s viceroy

  • Russia serf-owning aristocracy did not want Polish freedom on their frontier

  • Poles pushed to return to their 1772 borders

  • Nationalist revolutionaries called for driving Alexander out of Poland

    • 1823 Adam Mickiewicz arrested for nationalist plotting

    • Reaction and repression strike at Polish nationalist hopes

Reaction after 1815: The German States, Britain

• German principalities purposely united only in a loose federation, or Bund

• Nationalist ideas common in Germany

  • Doctrines of Volksgeist and a far-flung Deutshtum

  • Nationalist ideas that glorified the German common people

    • Burschenschaft- college clubs formed after 1815, centers of serious political discussion. Kind of a German youth movement

    • Nationwide congress at Wartburg 1817

      • Not an immediate threat to established states

      • Alarmed nervous governments

      • 1819 German writer Kotzebue, an informer in service to the tsar, was assassinated

• Metternich intervened in Germany

  • Carlsbad Decrees 1819 dissolved Burschenschaft and other nationalistic clubs

  • Provided G power to censor media

  • Decrees remained in effect for years, an effective check on growing nationalism

• Britain, while devoted to old traditions, was afflicted by advanced social problems of rapid industrial development

• Corn Law raised tariffs on grain to point where importation was impossible

  • Landlords and their farmers benefitted

  • Wage earners and industrial workers suffered

• Postwar depression in industry

  • Wages fell, many were unemployed

  • Spread of radical political ideas

• Riot in London December 1816, February 1817 Prince Regent attacked

  • G suspended habeas corpus

  • Spies hired to obtain evidence against agitators

  • Manchester pushed for Parliamentary representation

    • Soldiers fire upon protestors - 11 killed 400 wounded (Peterloo massacre)

    • Six Acts 1819 out-lawed seditious and blasphemous literature, heavy taxes on newspapers, search of private houses, restrictions on public meetings

    • Cato Street Conspiracy 1820- plot to kill all of the cabinet

      • Five are hanged

      • Publisher of Thomas Paines’ writings, jailed for seven years

• Reaction to revolution impacted European nations individually, even where it was exaggerated.

Section 55

The Leaking Dam and the Flood: International

• After the Congress of Vienna, a series of congresses of the Great Powers took place

  • Fledgling step toward international regulation of national affairs

  • A precursor to the League of Nations (1920s) and United Nations (1945- Present), or even the European Union of the late 20th century- Present

  • Holy Alliance becomes the popular term for the collaboration of European states in response to Napoleon’s conquests

Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1818

• 1818 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) involved the withdrawal of troops from France

  • Louis XVIII would never be popular with foreign armies occupying France

  • No disagreement from European coalitions

  • Private bankers take over French reparations debt (700 million francs imposed by Treaty of Paris)

    • Bankers paid allied governments

    • French, in due time, paid the bankers

• Tsar Alexander called for a permanent European union

  • Safeguard states against violence

  • Without revolution threat, Gs more willing to grant constitutional and liberal reforms

    • Other nations refuse to follow Alexander’s lead

  • British agree to meet for specific threats, but wish to maintain independent judgment in foreign policy

• Congress also addressed Atlantic slave trade

• Barbary pirate attacks in the Mediterranean Sea

  • Unanimously agree that both should be suppressed

• Britain abolished slave trade within their Empire in 1807

  • Naval captains authorized to stop and search vessels at sea

  • Continental states fear British sea dominance, refuse to allow this

  • British refused to put their own ships in an international pool of ships

    • Because they failed to agree on enforcement, nothing was done on slave trade

    • Demand for cotton and other slave produced commodities kept Atlantic slave trade strong

  • Barbary Pirates not removed from Mediterranean Sea until the early 1830s, when France begins colonizing Algeria

Revolution in Southern Europe: The Congress of Troppau, 1820

• Southern Europe first to see revolutionary/liberal sentiment

  • Spain, Naples, and the Ottoman Empire were inefficient, flimsy, and corrupt

  • Napoleonic reforms were at work in Spanish revolutionary movements

    • 1820 Gs of Spain and Naples collapse with demonstrations of revolutionaries

  • Metternich saw these agitations as a symptom of European revolution and moved to quarantine both

    • Revolutionary agitation was international

      • Leapt across borders due to secret societies and political exiles

      • Naples was worrisome to Metternich due to proximity to Austria

        • Called for meeting of Great Powers in Troppau

• Troppau was in Austrian controlled Silesia

• Great Britain and France send only observers

  • They did not like being led around by Austria

  • Alexander remains a problem for Metternich

    • They meet alone at an inn in Troppau

    • Alexander was distrustful of Constitution by extortion of a mob

      • Also disillusioned by Polish reaction against him

      • Alexander allowed himself to be persuaded by Metternich

        • Declared, Metternich had always been right, and he would follow Metternich’s political judgment

• Protocol of Troppau, authored by Metternich

  • Attempt to organize European states against internal conflict inside a European nation

    • Collective security against revolution

  • France and Great Britain refuse to accept the protocol

    • British Tories rejected the principle of binding international collaboration

    • British foreign minister Castlereagh said Austria should go into Naples on their own

  • Only Russia and Prussia endorse the protocol

    • Acting as the Congress of Troppau, these three powers enter Naples

    • Ferdinand I restored as absolute King

  • Result of Troppau is a gap between the three European autocracies (Austria, Prussia, Russia) and the two Western powers

Spain and the MIddle East: The Congress of Verona, 1822

• Revolutionaries fled Italy, ended up in Spain and Middle East

• Alexander Ypsilanti, a Greek who had spent his entire life in Russian military service, led a band of armed followers from Russia to Romania in 1821

  • Romania still part of Ottoman Turkey in 1821

  • Hoped that all Greeks and pro-Greeks in Ottoman Empire would join him

  • Wanted to use Greek Christians in the campaign

    • Hoped for Russia support, as it would weaken its rival in the regions around the Black Sea

    • Metternich disliked the idea of a Greek Empire forming under Russia help

      • Convened an international congress at Verona 1822

• Alexander refused to support Ypsilanti

  • Little enthusiasm from Greek culture in Romania and the Balkans

    • Ypsilanti defeated by Ottomans

      • Since Turks had handled Ypsilanti so quickly, the question of intervention by Europe was not addressed

• Revolution in Spain question handled by foreign intervention

  • French G offered to squash Spanish revolutionaries and the Congress allowed them to set up an army

    • 200,000 Frenchmen moved into Spain 1823

    • Majority of Spanish welcomed French troops

      • Satisfied with restoration of king and church

      • Ferdinand VII restored

        • Repudiated his constitutional oath

        • Let most reactionary of Spaniards have their way

          • Revolutionaries savagely persecuted, exiled, or jailed

Latin American Independence

• Impact of Napoleonic Wars felt in the Americas

• European powers maintained influence over long-held colonies

  • War of 1812 US vs. GB inconclusive

    • GB involved with Napoleon at the time

    • A few years later, after minor military operations, US takes Florida from Spain

    • New movements for national independence developed in Latin America

• Portuguese royal family escapes Napoleon by taking refuge in Brazil

  • Brazil emerged as a new empire independent of Portugal

  • 1889 imperial regime will give way to a Brazilian republic

• Spanish America stretches from San Francisco to Buenos Aires

  • News of American and French Revolutions, and Napoleonic occupation of Spain spread to the Spanish Americas

  • King of Spain jailed by French, then restored by Congress of Vienna

    • Has an impact on nationalists in Spanish Americas

  • British commercially active in Spanish Americas

    • During Napoleonic Wars increased trade their by 20 times

    • Business wise made sense for Spanish Americans colonist to resist old Spanish imperial system of trade controls

  • Social stratification played huge role in resistance against Spain

    • Creoles vs. Peninsulares

      • Creoles were the white population of Spanish descent

        • Unable to hold highest offices in G, by Peninsulares (Spanish born people)

    • Most of the people were native, slaves, or of mixed race.

      • Majority involved in agriculture

      • Revolutionary ideas difficult to spread

  • Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin

    • Creole leaders who both spent time in Europe

    • Preferred new constitutional principles of republicanism

    • Obtained independence, but unable to realize political aspirations for their new countries

      • The dissensions that long continued to afflict Spanish America were all present within the independence movement itself

• Spanish Americas were vast over 6,000 miles interrupted by mountain barriers

  • Less unity in liberation

  • No Continental Congress, like 1774 Philadelphia to provide a unified message

  • Revolts took place separately within vice-royalties

    • New Spain- Mexico

    • New Granada- Colombia & Venezuela

    • Peru (includes Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile)

    • La Plata- Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay

  • First revolts 1808 against Joseph Bonaparte, whom Napoleon had made king of Spain

    • Revolutionaries actually begin by proclaiming loyalty to deposed Ferdinand VII

      • 1814, when restored, he refuses to make any concessions to American demands

      • Revolutionaries turn against King Ferdinand VII

        • A series of disconnected struggles ensued

• Simon Bolivar becomes liberator of Venezuela and Colombia

• Jose de San Martin becomes liberator of Argentina and Chile

  • Combined for liberation of Peru

• Mexico saw a true mass rising of Indians and mestizos

  • Put down by middle and upper class Creole leaders

  • Long period of turmoil in newly independent Mexican states

  • 1829 Mexico becomes first postcolonial nation after Haiti to abolish slavery

• Political map of South and Central America did not settle into present form until later in the nineteenth century

  • Transition from colonial systems to modern nation states complicated and sometimes violent

    • Similar to what would later emerge from the 20th century postcolonial movements in Africa and Asia

• Emerging Latin American nations vulnerable to imperial interventions of outside powers

  • At Congress of Verona 1822, Tsar Alexander urged Europe to mediate between Spain and its colonies

    • Clear suggestion for military involvement

    • The British objected

      • Without British consent, armed forces could not sail into the Americas

      • Spanish Americas therefore maintained independence

• New Republics received strong moral support from US

  • Monroe Doctrine 1823

    • Attempts by European powers to return parts of America to colonial status would be viewed as an unfriendly act by the US

      • British proposed a joint statement, but Monroe wished to make a pointed statement against British interest in Spanish America also

      • Monroe Doctrine a counterblast to the Metternich doctrine of the protocol of Troppau

      • Efficacy of Monroe Doctrine depended on tacit cooperation of the British fleet

• European colonial power came to an end after Latin American liberation except for;

  • Canada, which voluntarily remains part of the British Empire

  • West Indies- smaller islands remain British, French, or Dutch

  • Cuba and Puerto Rico which remained Spanish until US takes them in the Spanish American War of 1898

The End of the Congress System

• After the Congress of Verona no more such meetings were held

  • Once Alexander converted to Metternich’s conservatism, congress stood only for preservation of the status quo

  • No attempt to accommodate new forces shaping Europe

    • Could not evolve into a modern transnational system for managing conflicts or social change

    • Governments never forced to institute reform to avoid revolutions

      • Revolutions were simply repressed

      • The congresses propped up Gs that could not stand on their own

• Great Britain showed a desire to stand aloof from permanent international commitments

• Austria and France got involved in squashing revolutionary agitation (in Naples and Spain) only when it served their national interests

• As France and Britain pulled away, the Holy Alliance became no more than a counterrevolutionary league of the three East European autocracies.

  • The cause of liberalism in Europe was advanced by the collapse of this highly conservative international system

  • Its collapse also opened the way to uncontrolled nationalism

    • George Canning wrote in 1822 “Every nation for itself and God for us all!”

Russia: The Decembrist Revolt, 1825

• Tsar Alexander died in 1825

  • His death was a signal for revolution in Russia

  • Secret Societies formed in the Russian officer corps leapt into action

    • Some wanted a republic, some a constitutional serfdom, some even wanting emancipation of the serfs

  • Alexander had two brothers (Constantine and Nicholas) and no one was sure who should become the next tsar

    • The army wanted Constantine

      • December 1825 soldiers in St Petersburg urged “Constantine and Constitution”

      • But, Constantine had already renounced his claim to throne

        • Nicholas was the rightful heir

        • The outpouring of support for Constantine was known as the Decembrist revolt

          • Five officers were hung, others were condemned to forced labor or interned in Siberia

        • Decembrist revolt was the first manifestation of the modern revolutionary movement in Russia- a revolution inspired by ideology, as opposed to the elemental mass upheavals of Pugachev or Stephen Razin in earlier times.

  • Nicholas I 1825- 1855 maintained an unconditional and despotic autocracy

• Ten years after the defeat of Napoleon the new forces issuing from the French Revolution seemed to be routed

  • Reaction, repression and political immobility were everywhere in Europe

  • A massive, conservative dam had sprung some political and social leaks, but during the 1820s it seemed to be containing the flood.

The Congress System, also known as the Concert of Europe, was established after Napoleon's defeat to maintain the balance of power and prevent the resurgence of revolutionary movements. It involved regular meetings among the great powers of Europe: Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. It included the key meetings of Aix-la-Chapelle, which focused on the renegotiation of reparations and admission of France into the Concert of Europe; Troppau, which declared that states undergoing revolutionary changes threatening other states would be excluded from the European alliance until stability was restored; and Verona, which focused on the revolutions in Spain and Portugal and reaffirmed the principle of intervention to restore legitimate monarchies. Its ultimate collapse was the culmination of diverging interests throughout European states, growing nationalism, and the system's overall ineffectiveness in preventing major world conflicts such as the Crimean War and the wars of Italian and German unification.