9.1.1 Europe From 1815
to 1914
9.1.1.2 The foundations of the Restoration (1814-1820)
1814
4 June. Louis
XVIII grants La Charte.
1 October. First meeting of the Congress of Vienna.
1815 9 June. Last session of the Congress of Vienna.
18
June. Battle of Waterloo.
18
July. Napoleon definitively exiled.
14
September. Russia, Prussia and Austria sign the Holy
Alliance.
1818 1
October -15 November. Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. France joins the Holy Alliance
.
9.1.1.3 Revolution and
counter-revolution (1820-1830)
1820 1 January. Colonel’s Riego’s Revolt in
Cabezas de San Juan.
8 March. Ferdinand VII endorses the
Constitution of Cádiz.
1821 5
May. Napoleon dies on St. Helena.
1822 22
November. Congress of Verona.
1823 7
April. Entry into Spain of the Hundred Thousand Sons of
St. Louis.
31 August. The French take the Fort of Trocadero (Cádiz).
30 September. Surrender at Cádiz.
End of the Liberal Triennium.
7 November. Hanging of Riego.
1824
9 April. Lord Byron dies in
Mesolonghi fighting for the independence of Greece
9 December. Battle of
Ayacucho. End of Spanish presence in the Americas.
1825 26
December. The Decembrist Revolt in St. Petersburg.
1826 22
June-15 July. Congress of Panama. Simón Bolívar fails in his attempt to form a
federation comprised of the recently-founded Latin American states.
1829 14 September. The Ottoman Empire recognizes
Greek independence (Treaty of
Adrianople).
9.1.1.4 The July
Monarchy as a model (1830-1848)
1830
27, 28, 29 July.
Revolution in Paris. Fall of Charles X.
August. The Netherlands Revolution breaks out. Belgium is born.
29 November. The Polish revolt against Russian
occupation.
1831 7
February. Adoption of the Belgian Constitution.
1832
7 June.
Electoral Reform Law in England.
26 December. Poland is incorporated
into Russia via the Organic Statute and s
subjected to an autocratic, Orthodox
and pro-Russian regime.
9.1.1.5 The Revolution
of 1848 and its consequences
1848 12
January. Revolution breaks out in Palermo (Sicily).
22-25 February. Revolution breaks out in Paris. (II French
Republic).
4 March. Charles Albert of Savoy promulgates a constitution
(Albertine
Statute).
13
March. Revolution breaks out in Vienna. Metternich flees.
18
March. Revolution breaks out in Berlin.
18 May. The Frankfurt Parliament is constituted in Prussia.
October.
A rebellion is quelled in Vienna.
2
December. Ferdinand I of Austria abdicates in favor of Francis Joseph.
1849
9 February. Promulgation
of the Republic in Rome (Mazzini).
24 March. Charles Albert of Savoy
hands the throne to his son, Victor Emmanuel II.
27 March. The Frankfurt Parliament
proclaims the German Empire's first constitution.
3 April. Frederick IV of Prussia
refuses to be appointed king by the Frankfurt Parliament.
31 May. Dissolution of the Frankfurt
Parliament.
1850
31 January. Frederick
William IV grants a new constitution for the
Kingdom of Prussia, which would remain in force until 1918.
20 March - 29 April. Failure of the
first attempt at a German federation, led by Prussia (Erfurt Union).
29 November. Frederick IV of Prussia
yields to Francis Joseph of Austria (Punctation of Olmütz).
9.1.1.6 Italian
unification (1852-1861)
1852 Camillo Benso (Count of Cavour)
becomes Víctor Manuel II’s prime minister.
1858 Cavour meets with Napoleon III at
Plombières. Franco-Sardinian Alliance.
1859
May - July. Austria is defeated by
Franco-Sardinian forces in Magenta and Solferino.
August-September. Tuscany, Parma,
Modena and part of the Papal States are
incorporated to the Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia.
1860
11 May. Garibaldi
lands at Marsala (Sicily), leading of force of 1,000 “redshirts.”
September. Victor Emmanuel II’s troops occupy
Naples.
1861
14 March. Proclamation of
the Kingdom of Italy (tricolor flag).
6 June. Cavour dies (at age 50).
9.1.1.7 German
unification (1862-1871)
1862 23 September. Bismarck heads the Council
of Ministers.
1866 3 July.
The Austrians are defeated by the Prussians at Königgrätz (Sadowa).
1868 19 September. Glorious Revolution in Spain.
Dethronement of Queen Elizabeth II.
1870
13 July. The Ems Dispatch.
19 July. The beginning of the
Franco-Prussian War.
2 September. French defeat
at the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III is taken prisoner.
19 September. Beginning of the siege
of Paris by the Prussians.
1871
18 January. William I is
proclaimed the kaiser of the German Empire in the Palace of Versailles (Hall of
Mirrors). The Germans
take revenge for the humiliations inflicted on them by Louis XIV and Napoleon .
28 January. End of the siege of
Paris.
18 March - 28 May. Paris
Commune.
9.1.1.8 The Armed
Peace (1882-1914)
1882 Bismarck
forges the Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy.
1888 9
March. Death of William I, who is succeeded by his son, Frederick III, who dies
of cancer on June 15. William II, age 29, becomes kaiser upon his father’s
death.
1890 20 March. Bismarck resigns.
1892 17
August. Franco-Russian Alliance.
Ratified in 1893 and in 1894 by
Russia and by France.
1904 8
April. Non-aggression and colonial expansion pact signed between France and
England (Entente cordiale).
1912 The
Titanic sinks. 1,517 passengers perish.
1914 28
June. Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
9.1.2 Spain from 1814 to 1923
9.1.2.1 Fernando VII’s
reign (1814-1833)
1814-1820 Absolutist repression.
1824 December 9 The defeat in the battle of
Ayacucho marks the end of 3000 years presence of Spain in the American
continent.
1820-1823 The Liberal Triennium: Constitutional period (1812 constitution reenacted)
1823-1833 The
Ominous Decade
1830, 9 March. Ferdinand
VII abolishes the Salic Law (Pragmatic Sanction). Future Elizabeth II is born on 10
October.
1833 29
September. The death of Fernando VII.
9.1.2.2 Elisabeth II’s
reign (1833-1868)
Regency of Maria Cristina
(1833-140)
1834 10
April. Enactment of the Royal Statute.
1836 12
August. La Granja Uprising.
1837 17 June. The liberals enact a new
Constitution in Spain.
1839 31 August. Convention of Vergara (Maroto
and Espartero). End of the First
Carlist War.
Regency of General Espartero (1840-1843)
.
1840 12 October. The beginning of Espartero’s
Regency. The progressive liberals take power.
1841 Treaty
Law of Navarra that enables its full integration the Spanish State
1843 10 November. Elizabeth II is declared of
age.
Elisabeth II’s majority (1843-1868)
1845 23 May. Narváez promulgates a new
constitution in Spain.
1846-1849 Second Carlist War
1859-1860 African War. Spain conquers part of Northern Morocco to protect
its historical territories of Ceuta and Melilla.
1868, 9 September. Glorious Revolution in Spain.
Dethronement of Queen Elizabeth II.
9.1.2.3 The Six-Years
Democratic Period (1868-1874)
1869 First democratic constitution in Spain.
1870-1873 Reign of Amadeo I of
Spain
1872 Beginning of the Third Carlist
War (1872-1876)
1873-1874 The First Spanish Republic
1874 December.
Alfonso XII is proclaimed king in Sagunto (Martínez Campos).
9.1.2.4 The
Restoration (1874-1923)
1874-1885 Reign
of Alfonso XII of Spain
1876 New Spanish constitution (Cánovas del
Castillo)
1878 Basque Economic Agreement, enables full
integration of the Basque provinces in the Spanish State.
1885 25
November. Death of Alfonso XI from o tuberculosis.
1885-1902 Regency of Maria
Christina of Austria
1893 An anarchist kills 22 persons with a bomb in
a opera performance in Barcelona.
1897
The former Spanish Prime Minister
Cánovas del Castillo is assassinated by an anarchist.
1898 Spanish-American War. Spain loses its last
colonies in America (Cuba) and Asia (Philippines).
1902-1923 Constitutional
reign of Alfonso XIII of Spain
1909 July
25 to 2 of August: Tragic Week of
Barcelona. The Spanish Army and Police fight an anarchist rebellion. 150
workers are killed.
1910 The
Socialist Spanish Party (PSOE) get its first deputy in a General election for
the the Spanish Congress: (Pablo Iglesias).
1912 The Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas is
assassinated by an anarchist.
1921, 22 July Disaster of Annual. Thousands of Spanish soldiers are brutally
killed by the Moroccan tribes of the Rif, because of the ineptitude of their
officers and commanders.
9.2. SOME WORDS
La Charte (Louis XVIII)
Congress of Viena
Holy Alliance
Metternich System
Hundred thousand sons of Saint Louis
Ayacucho (Battle of)
Decembrist Revolt (St Petersburg)
July Monarchy
Risorgimento
Albertine Statute (1848)
Red Cross
Ems Dispatch (1870)
Sedan (Battle of)
Second Reich (1871)
Mitteleuropa
Paris Commune
Duma (Russia)
Armed Peace
Entente Cordiale
Sarajevo Assasination (June 28,
1914).
Censitary suffrage
Liberalism
Liberal Triennium
Salic Law (Pragmatic Sanction)
Royal Statute (1834)
Carlist Wars
Glorious Revolution (1868)
Revolutionary Sexennial
Restoration (1874)
Spanish American War (1898)
Disaster of Annual (1921)
9.3. QUESTIONS
1. What was the Holy Alliance? What
was its purpose? In what considerations was it based?
2. Why the Metternich System could
be considered a forerunner of European integration?
3. What happened in Spain in 1820?
Why this event was constitutionally relevant all over Europe? Give some
concrete examples.
4. Why the Spanish constitutional
model of 1820 was obsolete by 1830?
5. What countries did follow the
liberal model of State between 1830 and 1848?
6. Why is 1848 a crucial year in
European constitutional history? Think of two different kinds of events that
happened simultaneously.
7. What are from a constitutional
point of view the differences between Italian unification (1852-1861) and
German unification (1862-1871)?
8. What are the essential principles
of the Liberal State model? From this point of view was the Napoleonic State a
liberal State?
9. In 1900 the parliamentary regime
became the rule in most of European liberal states. They were nevertheless some
exceptions. Concretely Russia, Prussia and Spain. Explain why, bearing in mind
that in every case the reasons were different.
10. Why did the Liberal model of
State led to the Armed Peace and to World War I?
9.4. TEXTS.
9.4.1 Excerpt taken from Article 2
of the Holy Alliance Convention
“The three sovereigns, proclaiming
that the Christian nation, of which they and their peoples form part, in
reality has no other monarch but God, their Majesties accordingly recommend,
with the most heartfelt appeal to their peoples, the only way to enjoy the
peace, through a clear conscience, which is the only true one, and that they
become stronger every day in their support for the principles and their
fulfillment of those duties which the Divine Savior taught to men.”
9.4.2 The Metternich System: a
forerunner of European integration?
“At Metternich's initiative, on 20
November, 1815 the four victorious powers which had defeated Napoleon -
England, Austria, Russia and Prussia - signed a Grand Alliance in Paris to
maintain a “protectorate ” in France which would legitimize the occupation of
French territory. In response to a proposal by the British Minister, Lord
Castlereagh, a clause (the sixth) was introduced in the pact according to which
the signing powers pledged to meet regularly to discuss issues of common
interest and to ensure the preservation of order and peace.
The Quadruple Alliance was forged to
prevent any revolutionary movement from arising in France. Thus, when the monarchy
under Louis XVIII seemed to be well-established, the allies, meeting in Aachen
in 1818, agreed to withdraw their troops from the country, which was admitted
into the alliance. In an additional, secret protocol, Metternich succeeded in
adding to the principle of legitimate intervention to prevent revolutionary
disorders a call for regular “congresses” by which the powers were to examine
the situation in Europe and make decisions, depending upon circumstances,
regarding the adoption of appropriate measures.
What came to be called the
“Metternich System” was thus established, a pact which can be considered a kind
of first attempt at European integration. In the years that followed Napoleon's
fall, through 1823, the European powers acted jointly and in concert, though
not to maintain a common economic
policy, but to preserve the order established at the Congress of Vienna, an
action they had been forced to take as liberals from all over Europe were
anxious to restore the nation-state.”
9.4.3 The revolutionary Liberals
The ultimate aim of many
revolutionary liberals, however, was to seize power through a military coup, a
practice which initially spread in Spain after the end of the War of
Independence and which came to be termed a pronunciamiento. In 1814, General
Elío, Captain General of Valencia, had defied Las Cortes (Parliament) and put
his troops at the service of Ferdinand VII. However, after the restoration of
absolutism, in May of that year it was the liberals who opted to resort to this
maneuver to introduce a constitutional regime. Coronel Rafael del Riego, a
prominent Mason, was the first to succeed. In early 1820 he managed to
orchestrate a revolt at Cabezas de San Juan (Seville) of the troops that
Ferdinand VII intended to send to America to subjugate pro-independence rebels.
The triumph of the “Spanish
Revolution” had important repercussions. Firstly, it prevented the deployment
of reinforcements to Spanish America, thereby ensuring the rebels’ victory
there. Most important was that Riego inspired European radical liberals to
undertake the same defiance of their absolute monarchs: three months after
Riego's success a liberal revolution broke out in the Kingdom of the two
Sicilies as a result of a rebellion by troops occupying Naples, in 1822 the Greeks
rose up against the Ottoman Empire, and in December 1825, taking advantage of
the death of Alexander I and the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, a group
of progressive Russian officials managed to lead a rebellion backed by 3,000
soldiers against the Tsar (Decembrist Revolt).
9.4.4 The French Monarchy of July
“The model of the liberal revolution
based on a military uprising, inspired by the coup led by Colonel Riego, was
succeeded by another approach: “popular revolution” through which, in July of
1830, the people of Paris took to the streets to overthrow the absolutist
Charles X and impose a constituent assembly, from which emerged a new regime:
the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe of Orléans (“the July Monarchy.”)
The triumph of the July Monarchy
triggered a new revolutionary wave across Europe. The rebellions in Italy, the
German territories and Poland, however, would fail, as the reactionary powers,
essentially Austria and Russia, were fierce in their stamping out of subversive
activities. Liberalism, however, prevailed elsewhere in Europe: the
Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland. It also had major repercussions
in England, where it inspired historic electoral reform in 1832.”
9.4.5 The triumph of the Liberals in Spain and Portugal
Liberalism also triumphed in Spain
and Portugal, although this had less to do with the French Revolution of 1830
than it did with two civil wars.
In Spain, the death of Fernando VII
(1833), who left no male heir, sparked the dynastic conflict known as the
“Carlist Wars.” When the absolutists endorsed the dynastic rights advanced by
Carlos María Isidro, a brother of the deceased king, regent María Cristina, in
order to place her daughter Isabel II on the throne, had no choice but to ally
with the liberals. After an attempt to grant a royal charter in the form of the
Estatuto Real de 1834 was foiled by a rebellious a group of Royal Guard
sergeants (the 1836 Mutiny at La Granja), the Constitution of 1837 was
ultimately approved, clearly inspired by the Belgian Constitution of 1831,
definitively consolidating the constitutional principle in Spain. With the rise
of the conservatives to power in 1843, however, the principle of the
constitutional state would be replaced by a Napoleonically-inspired administrative
state, a system which would endure all the way down to 1923, with the
constitutions of Narváez in 1845 and Cánovas in 1876 (save for the
“Revolutionary Sexennial” from 1868-1874).
In Portugal, after 1834 the
political struggle pitted moderates, defenders of the Constitution of 1824,
against “Septembrists,” or progressives, supporters of the Constitution of
1822. The latter group managed to seize power thanks to a September 1836 coup,
although they were removed in 1842 by the Conde de Tomar, who established a
much more authoritarian regime than that introduced by Narváez in Spain, which
led his political opponents to ally and triggered several dramatic overthrow
attempts, such as the Oporto Revolt (1846). The Conde de Tomar was eventually
forced to stepped down, although he would return to power from 1849 to 1851.
9.4.6 On Italian unification
Despite the fact that France had
signed a truce with Austria (Armistice of Villafranca), the army of the Italian
patriots continued military operations, annexing the Kingdom of Sardinia and
central Italy after the Piedmontese army’s occupation of Tuscany, Modena,
Parma, and part of the Papal States. The conquest of these territories was
legally formalized through the convocation of the corresponding constitutional
assemblies which, once elected, approved their incorporation into the Sardinian
Kingdom (August-September 1859). One should bear in mind that the new state was
based on the constitutional regime of Piedmont-Sardinia, which since 1848 had
been grounded on the Albertine Statute, based on the principle of national
sovereignty. In this way “Italian unity” was legitimized by the free consent of
its people (the “Italian nation”), who had been consulted via referendum.
By way of successive additions the
small Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which in July of 1859 had a population of
just 5 million, two years later boasted over 22 million. The next
constitutional step was to convene an Italian Parliament. Meeting in Turin,
this body proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy “by the grace of God and
the will of the nation” (March 14, 1861),
with the new Italian State promptly adopting its tricolor flag. Three
months later (June, 1861) Cavour died, but not before he had realized his
objective of Italian unification, with only Venice and Rome missing . In the
meantime Florence became the capital of Italy (1864).
9.4.7 On German unification
If the “Italian nation” became a unified
through a democratic movement from the bottom up, which took shape from the
outset through the adoption of a parliamentary regime, the “German nation's”
integration into a single state came about in the opposite way, from the top
down, advanced by the princes of the various Germanic states, led first by the
Emperor of Austria and later by the King of Prussia, who in 1871 became the
German Emperor. In this case integration was legitimized through a diplomatic
agreement between sovereigns rather than a popular vote.
By 1871 German unity had been achieved
although, unlike Italian unity, it was the work of the rulers of the various
German states, led by Prussia, and not something brought about by a popular
vote. Thus, parliamentary government was not consolidated in the German Empire,
as its emperor continued to unilaterally control the government. Another
important difference, largely a consequence of the above, was that, unlike in
Italy, where a unitary state was created, the German Empire continued to be a
federation. In fact, the integration of the German nation into a single state
would not come about until after World War I and the foundation of the Weimar
Republic (1919-1933).
9.4.8 Imperial Russia as a final
bastion of autarky
At the end of the 19th century the
last absolutist regime standing in Europe was Russia, headed by its Tsar,
Alexander II (1855-1881), who had failed to liberalize the country, his life
cut short by a terrorist bomb on March 13, 1881, the same day that he had
granted a constitution.
The assassination led his successor,
Alexander III (1881-1894), to reimpose autarky. Thus, political change in
Russia would not come about until Nicholas II (1894-1917) in a process
beginning with the Revolution of 1905, which established a constitutional
monarchy in which the Tsar began to govern in concert with an Assembly (Duma).
This liberal Russian regime was short-lived, however, as the outbreak of World
War I triggered two revolutions (that of February and October) in 1917, which
simultaneously did away with monarchy and liberalism in Russia.
9.4.9 The Liberal model of a State
with limited powers, controlled by the richest
The seizure of power by the wealthy
bourgeoisie was achieved by imposing representative, parliamentary-based
regimes which replaced (as in the case of the French Republic) or at least
restricted royal prerogative. These regimes, however, only represented the
affluent, as delegates were elected through a system of censitary suffrage
under which people were required to have a certain level of income or property
in order to vote. In this way the financial and commercial bourgeoisie managed
to control the state apparatus, enforcing its rules and policies. This meant
that the new public power restricted itself to maintaining order, leaving
everything else in the hands of the new ruling class, especially economic
policy. It was the “liberal” principle of laissez faire which allowed the new
European nation-states to achieve impressive levels of economic development.
9.4.10 The Liberal Revolution
Over the course of the 19th century,
one by one all European countries would become “nation-states,” with a sole
exception: Tsarist Russia, where the autocratic model of absolute monarchy
would endure until the Revolution of 1905. This process of political
transformation and its important economic consequences is what has been called
the “Liberal Revolution.”
Of course, this phenomenon developed
in a different way in each different country. In England, for example, although
the monarchical principle was respected, the liberal model clearly triumphed,
as the parliamentary regime was firmly entrenched, with the monarch reigning
but not ruling. In other countries liberalism’s
triumph was more moderate, where despite the appearance of
representative assemblies the Government remained in the hands of the king.
Such was the case in Spain, with its model in which the Cortes shared
sovereignty with the king, and in Prussia, where government was entirely
entrusted to the monarch, with the representative assembly limited to
legislative and budgetary functions. Finally, in other states the triumph of
the liberal model marked a definitive rejection of monarchy, as in France,
which in 1875 shifted to a republic featuring a powerful representative
assembly and a weak executive - though the system functioned thanks to the
existence of the all-powerful administrative state established by Napoleon.
The lack of a single approach when
it came to carrying out the bourgeois revolution was due to the fact that
European liberals were divided into two camps: those who sought to move
gradually towards the limitation of monarchical power, from within the system
(doctrinaire or moderate liberalism) and another, more extremist class whose
members sought a radical break with the Ancien
Régime (“revolutionary liberalism”).
9.4.11 Nationalism and
confrontation: the Europe of the “Armed Peace”
The consolidation of nation-states
weakened the European political model of stability through coalition which
Metternich had striven to maintain from 1815 - 1848, replacing it with a
dynamic in which powerful nations squared off against and competed with each
other. The triumph of the nation-state in Italy and Germany precipitated
successive wars. Italian unity was not achieved without bloody clashes between
French-Sardinian and Austrian troops. In fact, the battles of Magenta and Solferino
(1859) were particularly grim, not so much in terms of those killed in combat,
but due to the fact that the medical services were so deficient that most of
the men died as a result of preventable infections and treatable wounds. This
appalling situation would inspire Swiss businessman and philanthropist Henri
Dunant (1828-1910), to found the Red Cross.
Three years later, German nationalism, embodied and advanced by
Bismarck, waged war to defeat Austria (1866) and, four years later, France
(1870). Prussia’s triumph over Austria and France led to the 1871 founding of
the Second Reich and the generation of serious resentment in France due to
Prussia’s seizure of the Alsace and Lorraine regions. The Russians, meanwhile,
after defeating Napoleon, also managed to gradually overpower the Ottoman
Empire, thereby becoming another great colonial power.
All these wars, however, were
nothing more than the beginning of an escalation which would end up taking on
global dimensions in the first half of the 20th century. The root cause of the
international tension that arose between the European states during the last
third of the 19th century was that Italy and Prussia, the new European
nation-states unified in the last third of the century, joined in relatively late
on the process of colonial expansion, hitherto dominated by the British Empire
and France, which in 1830 launched an ambitious colonial program. Meanwhile,
colonial Russia and even Belgium (Congo) had joined the colonial game.
Italy, forged into a nation-state
before Germany, moved to exploit territories in Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia,
Abyssinia and Tripolitania (Libya). Prussia, however, barely managed to occupy
Namibia. This meager achievement was all the more frustrating because the
German Empire had become a major industrial power in need of raw materials and
new markets. As a result, William II (1888-1918) launched an aggressively
expansionist policy which collided head-on with the colonial interests of
England and France. It was Bismarck’s aspiration for central Europe (Mitteleuropa) to overpower the English
Empire through expansion to the east, to the detriment of Russia (Ostraum). The upshot was widespread
rearmament and the constitution of defensive alliances aimed at regulating
colonial expansion, such as that signed between France and Russia in 1892, or
that between England and France in 1904 (Entente
cordiale), a union which the United States would ultimately end up joining.
In response to these alliances
William II’s German Empire signed others with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
empires, which ratcheted up tensions, creating an international situation which
historians have come to called the “Armed
Peace.” Trade disputes and economic conflicts ended up degenerating into a
military conflict which would spread throughout the world: World War I (1914-1918).
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