CONGRESS OF VIENNA
AND INTRO TO “ISMS”
REVIVED CONSERVATISM
• After the defeat of Napoleon, conservatives (reactionaries) reassert
themselves
• The Big Four
•
•
•
•
England – Lord Castleregh
Russia – Alexander I
Prussia – Hardenberg
Austria- Metternich
• Led by Klemenz von Metternich
• “The Dancing Congress”
CONSERVATISM
• Conservatists believed that national, historic, and religious traditions are the
essential foundations of any society.
• All change should be gradual
• Appealed to those frightened by the social disorder, violence, and terror of
the French Revolution
• Traditional institutions of power:
•
•
•
•
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Church
Patriarchal family
CONSERVATIVE GOALS
• Legitimacy
• Restore ruling families Napoleon and French
Revolution dispose of
• Compensation
• Reduce France to its old boundaries
• Balance of Power
• Weaken France so no longer wage war of
aggression or threaten balance of power
• Didn’t want to humiliate or antagonize France
PROBLEM ENCOUNTERED
• Prussia and Russia want land compensation for their losses in war
• Austria had received land and Britain maintained large overseas colonial
empire; this nearly led to new hostilities
• Tallyrand, Castleregh, and Metternich forged a secret alliance
• Restored French prestige internationally
• Prospect of war caused Prussia and Russia to moderate their demands
PRINCIPLES
• Intervention: states of Europe had the right to interfere
with internal politics of another state to preserve the status
quo
• Britain objected to this principle
• “Dual revolution” – combination of economic and
political interests
• Example: socialism
• Holy Alliance: Austria, Russia, and Prussia together in 1815,
initiated by Tsar Alexander I
HOLY ALLIANCE: RUSSIA, AUSTRIA, AND PRUSSIA
L-R: ALEXANDER I, FRANZ I, FRIEDERICK WILHELM III
AGE OF METTERNICH
• Political situation of Austrian Empire feeds
Metternich’s political beliefs
• Main objective is to protect Austrian Empire
and snuff out any liberal or nationalistic
movements
• Austrian Empire: multi-lingual, multi-ethnic
empire
• Set up Congressional System (Metternich
System)
• Designed to snuff out any Liberalism or
Nationalism
• Nationalism, liberalism, constitutionalism will
lead to the destruction of the Austrian
Empire
SETTLEMENT RESULTS
• France forced to return to its 1790 borders and to pay 700 million francs
• France was allowed to keep most of its overseas possessions, its arm, and an independent
government
• To keep France from renewing its drive for power, the Congress encircled France with
strengthened powers:
• Austrian Netherlands was united with the Dutch Republic to form a single kingdom of the
Netherlands
• A group of 39 German states were loosely joined to a newly created German Confederation,
dominated by Austria
• Congress recognized Switzerland as an independent and neutral nation
• Kingdom of Sardinia in Italy was strengthened by the addition of Piedmont and Savoy
Russia acquired more Polish territory
Sweden retained Norway
Prussia acquired 2/5ths of Saxony and territory in the Rhineland along the border of France
Austria acquired the northern Italian provinces of Lombardy and Venetia as compensation for
its loss of Belgium
• Britain gained valuable territories for its overseas empire including Malta, Cape of Good Hope,
Trinidad, and Tobago
•
•
•
•
EVALUATION
• Congress of Vienna enacted a settlement that was acceptable to both the
victors and to France
• It created a balance of power that lasted until the unification of Germany in
1871
• It underestimated the forces of liberalism and nationalism unleashed by the
French Revolution
CONSERVATISM
• Pro-Status Quo – opposed to liberalism and nationalism
• For those who feared the terror, violence, and social disorder that was unleashed
by the French Revolution
• Supported the ruling elite and the monarchs
• Stability and longevity, not progress and change, mark a good society
• Only sources of political authority: God and History
• Rejected the social contract theory
• Natural rights are determined and allocated by the state/authority
CONSERVATISM
• Impact:
• Basically reactionary in nature, anti-everything
• Hatred of liberalism which they saw as anti social and morally degrading
• The aggressive Middle Class was the new, “tyranny” in society
“RADICAL” IDEOLOGIES
• Liberalism:
• Liberty and equality are the prime desires of “classical” liberalism
• Laissez-faire government; “the government that is best is the one that governs
least”
• Includes economic liberalism (equality of opportunity)
• Expects representative government, but not necessarily democracy
• Freedom of speech, press, assembly
• Constitutionalism:
• Democratic republicans
• Democracy – universal male suffrage
• Republicanism:
• Desired government for the people
LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE,
DELACROIX
MIDDLE CLASS - LIBERALISM
• First theory in Western thought to teach that the individual is a self-sufficient
being.
• Freedom and well-being are paramount.
• Liberals came from the middle class.
• Liberalism was reformist in nature not revolutionary.
• Main influence between 1815-1845
MIDDLE CLASS - LIBERALISM
• Characteristics
•
•
•
•
Entitled to seek their freedom if unjust restrictions are imposed.
Humans have certain natural rights that governments should protect.
Basic Fundamental Rights – right to own property (Bill of Rights)
Education was a prerequisite to individual responsibility and self-government
MIDDLE CLASS - LIBERALISM
• Economic Liberalism
• Laissez-faire capitalism or no government controlled capitalism
• Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations 1776
• Free enterprise is the best type of economic system
• Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo – Competition will check the system
MIDDLE CLASS - LIBERALISM
• Utilitarianism – Jeremy Bentham
• The pleasure – pain principle (good-evil)
• Humans are to avoid pain and seek pleasure
• Theory used to test laws – “the greatest happiness of the
greatest number of people”
• Best government protects individualism and brings most
pleasure and least pain to greatest number
MIDDLE CLASS - LIBERALISM
• England – John Stuart Mill
• “government that governs best
governs least”
• Advocate of women’s rights and
unions
• Impact:
• Liberalism had an impact on British
reforms of the mid 1800s
• Main impact of the continent was
in the different Germanic regions
(Prussia and Austria)
TORIES AND WHIGS
Party of Aristocracy
• Scared by the French Revolution
(suspended habeas corpus, controlled
the press with Six Acts, practically
ended right to assembly)
• Want to keep making $ after the end of
the Continental System (which had
helped the sales of domestic corn
grown on land they owned)
• Corn Laws, 1815
Led by aristocrats but more friendly to the
middle class.
• Made representation in the Commons
more reflective of population density,
allowed the solid middle class to vote
• Reform Bill of 1832
• Created a number of new districts
representing heavily urban areas
• Doubled the number of voters to
include most middle-class men
• Under Bill, only about 1 in 5 adult
males could vote
• Workers, women, and the poor
were all excluded
TORIES AND WHIGS
• Supported the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (joined by Tory leader Robert
Peel)
• Corn Laws placed a high tariff on imported corn, wheat, and other grains
• Tariff benefitted large landowners by providing them with a protected market for their
crops
• Prominent industrialists formed the anti-corn law league and advocated a free-trade
policy that would lower the price of food and increase the profits of industry
• Wealthy landowners stubbornly resisted all reform proposals. However, the Irish
potato famine dramatically strengthened the support for cheaper imported grains
• Limited the work day with the Ten Hours Act
FAILURE OF LIBERALISM: GREAT
BRITAIN AND IRELAND
• Irish mistreated by British landlords
• Irish Catholics versus British Protestants
• Horrible poverty and high population growth
• Completely dependent on the potato
• Potato crop problems started in 1820, peaked with failed crops in 1845, 1846,
and 1848
• British government provided little to no relief
CONSEQUENCES
• Failure of British liberalism
• 1 million Irish fled the country and 1.5 million died
• Intensified anti-British feeling
• Promoted Irish nationalism
THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT
• Britain’s disenfranchised workers demanded more sweeping reforms
• In 1838, working-class leaders drew up a People’s Charter that demanded
universal manhood suffrage, a secret ballot, equal electoral districts, and the
abolition of property requirements for membership in the House of
Commons.
• Despite widespread public support, Parliament adamantly refuse to consider
the Chartists’ proposals.
• Note: Most of the Chartist reforms would be ultimately adopted
NATIONALISM
• The most insidious of “radical movements
• Spain and Naples establish liberal constitutions
• Principle of intervention is invoked and monarchies are restored
• Nationalism becomes tied to liberalism; most nationalists support liberal ideas
• The best way to get freedom from a ruling culture was to have liberty and equality.
• These people were seeking a government and identity for their “nation” and
these emotions were made militant by the revolution.
• Nationalism’s roots: cultural identity of a people
• Nation: people group with common history, language, and traditions
• Nation-state: political unit that encompasses and is governed by a nation
NATIONALISM
• Nationalism draws its motivation from Napoleon and the French Revolution
• Subject peoples start to think of themselves along national and linguistic lines
• Roots of European democracies: just as a nation is comprised of people with a
common tongue; so should they also be governed by themselves
• “we” versus “they” mentality
• 2 events set the scene for Nationalism in the early-mid 1800s
• Napoleonic Wars: either displaced, corrupted, or destroyed governments from
Spain to Western Russia
• Congress of Vienna 1815
• “Legitimacy” – reinstalled the old ruling families (Bourbon, Habsburg, Romanov)
• “Balance of Power” – land divided up equally
• Some nationalities were broken up (Poland, Germans, Slavic Nations)
NATIONALISM
• Characteristics:
•
•
•
•
Romantic sentiment
Break down of loyalties to the Church and the Dynastic influence
Sovereignty belonged to the people
Pride and a sense of a nation came from like peoples
NATIONALISM
• Johan Gotfied Herder (1744-1803)
• Every group of people is unique and possess a distinct
national character
• No one culture is better than another. All are part of
humanity.
• Every nation has a right to become a sovereign nation.
PARADOX OF NATIONALISM
• Liberal and democratic but also deals with feelings of national superiority.
• Each nation felt oppressed by various other ones and strive for ascendancy
over their neighbors.
• Ultimately leads to the destruction of international order and heightened
militancy between rival nations.
• Nationalist stirrings lead to nationalist movement leads to liberation for the
majority leads to wars of liberation on behalf of oppressed remainders
eventually leading to WWII
CONSERVATIVES VERSUS LIBERALS
AND NATIONALISTS
• Most of the conflict between 1820 and 1848 were Conservatives trying to put
down an Liberal or Nationalistic movements
• Age of Metternich see conservatives holding on, but never stopping
nationalists or liberals
• Other “ism” ideas developed in this time
SOCIALISM
• Bentham’s utilitarian ideas of “greatest good for the greatest number”
+
• Smith’s laissez-faire governments
=
• Human equality and social justice for all classes
SOCIALISM
• System of economic equality planned by the government
• Characteristics:
• Economic planning by government
• Greater economic equality
• State regulation of property
• Urged workers to agitate for universal voting rights
• Government backed workshops and factories
UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS
• Based on Sir Thomas More’s Utopia
• Human society should be organized by a community
• All peoples needs met within the community
FRENCH UTOPIAN SOCIALIST
• French Socialists – system of economic
equality planned by the government
• Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
• Industrialization, aided by science, would
bring a wondrous new age to Europe
• “parasites” must give way to “doers”
• Louis Blanc (1811-1882) – more practical
approach
• Urged workers to fight for universal suffrage
and to take control using democracy
MARXISM
• Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
• The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1844
• I charge the English middle classes with mass murder, wholesale robbery, and all
the other crimes in the calendar.
• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Communist Manifesto, 1848
• “the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles”
• Characteristics:
• Class struggle: between bourgeoisie (middle class) and proletariat (working
class)
• Wages were stolen profits from the workers
• Inevitable, violent revolution
MARXISM
• Marx believed that the history of class conflict is best understood through the dialectical
process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
• The thesis is the dominant state of affairs – it inevitably gives rise to conflicting or contradictory
force called antithesis.
• The resulting class between the thesis and antithesis produces a new state of affairs called
synthesis.
• Marx argued that 19th century society had split “into 2 great classes directly facing each other:
bourgeois and proletariat”
• As the owners of the means of production, the bourgeoisie were the thesis and proletariat were
the antithesis
• Marx contended that this struggle would to lead “to the dictatorship of the proletariat”
• The “dictatorship of the proletariat” would be transitional phase leading “to the abolition of all
classes and to a classless society” in which there would be no private ownership of the means
of production
• Marx and Engels argued that women were exploited by both men and capitalists
ROMANTICISM
• Reaction to the cold, calculating emotionless Enlightenment
• Rooted itself in Rousseau
• Emotion is important (in Emile, the rearing of a child), thus Romantics pulled from
this basis
The Romantic Movement
 Began in the 1790s and peaked in the 1820s.
 Mostly in Northern Europe, especially in Britain and
Germany.
 A reaction against classicism.
 The “Romantic Hero:”
 Greatest example was Lord
Byron
 Tremendously popular among
the European reading public.
 Youth imitated his haughtiness
and rebelliousness.
ROMANTIC BELIEFS
• Romantics loved nature and the French Revolution; hated industrialization
• Believed in attaining lofty spiritual heights; great deeds; emotional glory and
intense suffering
•
•
•
•
•
•
Emotions were not to be denied
Nature was a source of inspiration
Nationalistic movements (ex: Greece) to be supported
Boundless universe
Search for the sublime is the hallmark of Romantics
Looking for transcendent experiences
MAKING COMPARISONS
• The Enlightenment embraced a mechanical view of human nature and the
physical world.
• Rejected faith and instead relied on a rational, scientific approach to
understand the relationship between human beings and the natural world
• Favored the deist view that a distant God created the natural world and like a
“divine witchmaker” stepped back from his creation and humanity’s daily
concerns
• The romantics believed in a loving, personal God.
• Stressed emotion, inner faith, and religious inspiration
• Embraced the wonders and mysteries of nature as a way to feel the divine
presence
ROMANTIC ARTISTS
Caspar David Friedrich, Wonderer
Above the Mist
ROMANTIC ARTISTS
• Eugene Delacroix –
Liberty Leading the
People
ROMANTIC
ARTISTS
John Constable – The
Hay Wain
ROMANTIC ARTISTS
Francisco Goya – The Third
of May 1808
ROMANTIC ARTISTS
• J. M. W. Turner –
Hannibal Crossing the
Alps
KEY ROMANTIC FIGURES
• William Wordsworth
• Father of Romanticism
• Friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Worked together to write Lyrical Ballads
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Also a literary critic
• Wrote poetry
OTHER WRITERS
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (1847)
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (1847)
• Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott (1819)
• Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
• The Three Musketeers – Alexander Dumas (1844)
• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (1817)
• Dracula – Bramm Stoker (1897)
• Grimm’s Fairy Tales – Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ROMANTIC MOVEMENTS
• Sturm and drang: storm and stress; Germanic romantics
• very intense lives; often ending in suicide
• Goethe:
• Wrote Faust
• German nationalistic poet
The Romantic Poets
 Percy Byssche Shelley
 Lord Byron (George
Gordon)
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 William Wordsworth
 John Keats
 William Blake
ROMANTIC MANIFESTATIONS
• France was not totally pulled in to the Romantic
movement
• French classicism retained some hold
• France became the leader of the realist movement
• Fairy tales, medieval stories, poetry
• Grimm Brothers: increased German knowledge of
folklore and nationalism
• Music designed to transport the soul, no longer
religiously bent; more concerned with emotional
impact of the music
• Beethoven:
• Romantic composer
• Eroica (originally composed for Napoleon)
• Ninth Symphony
ROMANTICISM AND NATIONALISM
• As romantic writers studied the past, they helped make people aware of
their common heritage.
• The resurgence of national feeling sparked nationalist movements across
Europe.
• The first stirring was felt in Greece.
• The Greek revolt against the Ottoman Empire began in 1821
• While revolutions in Spain and Italy failed because of great power intervention,
the Greek revolt succeeded because of the support of Great Britain, France,
and Russia
• These nations all wanted to expand their influence in the Balkans
• They were also influenced by public support for Greece because of its historic
importance as the birthplace of Western civilization