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The enduring legacy and influence of the French
Revolution in 19th century Europe: the on-going struggle of liberal, democratic,
and national aspirations against countervailing efforts to restore international
and domestic stability, to repress signs of revolt or revolution, and to
restore essentials of the “Old Order” or the “Old Regime.”
- Liberalism’s chief aims were the liberation of the economy from state intervention
and the establishment of representative government, mainly in the form
of constitutional monarch. Liberals
were not democrats.
- Democracy had classically been defined as the worst form of government because
it led to the rule of the mob under despots. Rousseau gave democracy the
modern, positive sense that prevails today, meaning government based on
the participation of the people and justified by the principle that sovereignty
resides with the people, not with kings, princes, magistrates, or other
elite groups. The radical phase of the French Revolution provided examples
of modern democratic practice through its establishment of universal male
suffrage and support for an enlarged notion of “equality” by embracing
the principle that the state had an obligation to provide education for
all citizens, financial assistance to those who were in need, and other
means of equal participation in the benefits of democratic republic.
- Nationalism (politically based) as it emerged from the French Revolution was based
on popular sovereignty and the equal rights of citizenship that all members
of the nation or political community had by virtue of their membership
in that politically constituted nation. This was a politically based conception
of nationalism that was linked to patriotic loyalty to the nation.
- Nationalism (culturally based) emerged in another form that was based on shared
culture of language and history. This took root in the Germanies in response
both to the absence of a common German state in Central Europe and to
aggressive nationalism carried by the French in their military campaigns
from 1792-1815 and its occupation or annexation of states and principalities
within the Germanies as well as Italy. Without a common state, German
proponents of nationalism called on their common heritage of language
and culture to foster unity that could then bring into being a true national
state for Germany.
- Conservatism was an ideology of change in the sense that legitimate and desirable
change came about through slow, gradual historical evolution, not by violent
and dramatic revolution. One of its founders was Edmund Burke, a British
writer and member of Parliament, who denounced the French Revolution as
disastrous and illegitimate assault on the true nature of French government
and society. Joseph de Maistre,
a Francophile writer from the kingdom of Savoy, based his theory of conservatism
on a renewed version of divine right monarchy and the central importance
of the church in any legitimate state. Conservatives worked for change in the
sense of returning a revolutionary society to its “old order” and to preserving
traditional institutions such as dynastic monarchy, aristocratic privilege,
and the church.
- Examples of the Conservative turn of mind and state
practice
- The Peterloo Massacre near Manchester, England
in 1819
- The Karlsbad decress of the German Confederation
in 1819, outlawing organizations espousing liberal or radical or nationalist
principles.
- The Restoration of the Church in France:
the example of Restoration Crosses being erected
among Liberty Trees (see
pictures and commentary)
- In international relations, the Congress System that worked to keep Europe from any general war
from 1815 to 1914 and that helped bring an unprecedented degree of stability
during the entire 19th century.
- Clemens von Metternich (1773-1859) was from 1809 until 1848 the Foreign
Minister of Hapsburg Austrian and the major architect of the Congress
System. Like Napoleon, he was
extremely self-assurred and conceited.
“There is, he said of himself, a wide sweep about
my mind. I am always above and beyond the preoccupations of most public men.
I can cover a ground much vaster than they can see. I cannot keep myself from
saying about twenty times a day: ‘How right I am, and how wrong they are.’”
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Metternich based his policies on 1) the conservative notion of “legitimacy,”
which equated the good and just with historic tradition and the institutions
of dynastic monarchy, church, and aristocratic privilege and 2) a new vision
of balance of power in international affairs.
To restore and protect the legitimate order of Europe meant to restore
and protect legitimate monarchs who would preserve traditional institutions:
The Bourbons in Spain and France
The Pope and other rulers in Italy
The Netherlands under King William I of Orange
The Polish Kingdom under the Russian Tzar
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The success of the Congress System, 1815-1848.
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A moderate territorial settlement after the defeat of France satisfied the
victors (Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) without humiliating France
but by including France in the new Congress System. (A great contrast to the
Peace of Versailles ending World War I, whose terms were designed to humiliate
defeated Germany.)
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The Great Powers kept their agreements to ally against revolutionary aggression,
in large part because of their recognition of the vast costs in money and
men involved in a general European war.
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The Congress System worked through a council of the Five Great Powers (Britain,
France, Prussia, Austrian, and Russia) who settled international disputes
through diplomatic meetings of all parties instead of bi-lateral or multi-lateral
negotiations a kin to the alliances during the 18th century.
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The Congress reorganized Central Europe, which up to then was a field of intense
rivalries, instability, and war since the 17th century 30 Years’
War. The German Confederation under joint Prussian and Austrian leadership
saw the political geography much simplified from the 300 principalities in
1789 to 38 in 1815.
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Concerted action to act together, to maintain the status quo, and a balance
of power or equilibrium in Europe generally succeeded.