Revolutions of 1848
Beginning in Paris in February 1848 and spreading within weeks across France, the German and Italian states, the Habsburg Empire and beyond, the Revolutions of 1848 were the broadest wave of upheaval Europe had yet seen. They were driven by liberal demands for constitutions and civil rights, by nationalist aspirations to unite Germans, Italians and Hungarians or to win independence, and by the social distress of the industrialising, harvest-failing 'hungry forties'. Crowds toppled France's July Monarchy, forced the arch-conservative Metternich to flee Vienna, and won fleeting constitutions across the continent. Yet within a year almost every rising had been crushed. They lacked unified aims, organised armies and a common front; liberals and radicals split, the propertied classes recoiled from social revolution, and the old dynasties — recovering their nerve and their troops, Austria with Russian help in Hungary — struck back. The 'Springtime of Nations' achieved little immediately beyond the abolition of serfdom in central Europe, but it permanently placed nationalism and constitutional government on Europe's agenda and taught a generation that unity would come through state power, not popular barricades.
- Year: 1848 CE
- Category: Political
