Chapter 23: State Building and Social Change in Europe, 1850-1871

• Revolutions of 1848
  • Revolution from lower classes was a failure
  • Governments responded by increasing centralization of power
• The Crimean War
  • Fought over what great powers would do in response to the decline of Ottoman Empire
  • England, France, Austria and Russia al wanted to increase their sphere of influence in the region
  • Isolated Russia from European politics
  • Aided Prussia in expanding into Central Europe
• France was given rights over Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire (1852)
• Russians claimed right to rule over Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire (1853)
  • Turks rejected the Russian claim
  • Russians invaded Danubian Principalities and sunk Turkish fleet at the Battle of Sinope
  • Russians tried direct terms of peace with England and france rejecting terms and declaring war on Russia
• September 9, 1854: English and French troops arrived in Crimea
  • War ended with Peace of Paris 1856
• Cost of Crimean War
  • 750,000 dead, most being Russians
  • Bad medical conditions
• Risorgimento was a cultural and political movement meant to reunify Italy
  • Failed throughout first half of the 19th Century
  • Treaty of Plombieres
• 1860: Piedmont-Sardinia joined with rest of northern Italy
• 1866: Prussia defeated Austria
• Italy claimed Venetian provinces and Papal States
• 1870: Prussians defeated the French
• Otto Von Bismarck: force behind German Unification
  • Believed that traditional elites needed to join nationalists to survive
  • Used common ground of nationalism in order to manipulate and weaken liberals
• Kaiser Wilhelm I attempted to reorganize the military in 1862
  • Traditional elites reacted strongly
• Bismarck established alliance with Austria in 1846
• Seven Weeks War (1866)
  • Started due to administrative disagreements between Austria and Prussia over territory of Schleswig
  • Prussian victory
  • Peace terms removed Austria from German unification
• Franco-Prussian War (1870)
  • Southern German states were afraid of unification around Prussian power
  • Napoleon III of France was against a strong Prussia per French interests
  • French declared war
  • Southern German and Prussians united and won
• German Unification
  • Became greatest industrial empire in Europe
  • Shift in balance of power
  • Allowed for a yearning for national prestige in German to exist
• Ideology and symbolism allowed states t o make new national identities
• Nationalism became connected to conflict and violence
• Realism appeared through art, literature, science, and history
• Paris Commune: continued struggle of people of Paris after Paris fell to Prussia
• France: Second Empire 1852-1870
• England: Liberal Parliamentary Democracy assisted reform
  • England faced many social issues as a result of unchecked industrialization and urbanization
  • 1868-1874: Great Ministry
  • 1874-1880: Tory Democracy
  • 1880: Liberals were back in power
  • 1884: Universal Male Suffrage
• Russia
  • started as unreformed semi-feudal autocracy
  • Tsar had absolute power
  • Alexander II “Tsar Liberator” ended serfdom and freed serfs and gave them land
  • Economic reforms allowed for political reforms

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