The Age of Nationalism

• France’s Second Republic in 1848 guaranteed universal male suffrage; Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte is elected for three reasons:
• 1. Name recognition – uncle was Napoleon
• 2. middle class individuals and peasan property owners feared socialism and the workers, so they wanted a strong leader to protect property and provide stability
• 2. Louis Napoleon circulated a pamphlet with his positive program for France before the election

• He felt that a strong, authoritarian leader would stimulate the economy by providing jobs and making reforms in a direct democracy, not a representative democracy
• However, the National Assembly at this time is conservative, and Louis
Napoleon grudgingly shares power with them at first in the hopes they will vote for funds he can use to repay personal debts
• National Assembly pushes through bills that increase the power of the
Catholic Church and took away the right to vote from many poor people

• The Assembly refuses to change the constitution so that Louis Napoleon can run again, so he organizes a coup and takes control of the government on
December 2, 1851
• He dismisses the Assembly and calls on voters to legalize his actions; 92% of voters do, and a year later, 97% of voters recognize him as hereditary emperor

• 1852-1970
• Government promotes new investment banks and railroad construction
• Public works projects – rebuilding of Paris, created jobs
• Workers supported him and he granted them the right to form unions and strike
• Public opinion moved toward liberalism, and Napoleon responded with reforms that granted the Assembly (newly reformed) more powers
• 1870 – Napoleon III approves a new constitution which combined a parliamentary regime with a hereditary emperor as chief of state

• Before 1850 Italy had never been united; divided into various states
• Many Italians looked to the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont for leadership (like
Germans looked to Prussia)
• Sardinia’s king Victor Emmanuel II retained a liberal constitution which inspired other Italians
• The Church is not in favor of unification – wants to retain power
• Sardinian statesman Cavour becomes instrumental in Italian unification
• He focuses at first on unity for the states of northern and central Italy with
Sardinia Piedmont

• This required driving Austria out of northern Italian states
• Cavour allies himself with Napoleon III and when Austria attacks Sardinia in
1859, France comes to Sardinia’s defense and the alliance is victorious
• However, French Catholics criticize Napoleon to allying himself with an enemy of the pope and France withdraws frm alliance and makes an agreement with
Austria that only gives Sardinia Lombardy, rather than all the northern states
• Nationalist leaders in cetral Italy call for unification, and in 1860 they vote to join the kingdom of Sardinia Piedmont

• Giuseppe Garibaldi, a nationalist in the south, joins the cause for complete unification
• He invades the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1860 with his Red Shirts
(guerilla army) and gains the support of people living in those territories
• Cavour doesn’t want Garibaldi to attack Rome because France would then get involved, so he encourages Garibaldi to get his supporters to join the kingdom of Sardinia
• A new kingdom of Italy ruled by a parliamentary monarchy under Victor
Emmanuel

• Each wants to dominate the German Confederation
• Prussia led the Zollverein (trade union) in German states; Austria not a member
• Middle class liberals in the Prussian parliament dream of unification, but King
William I is skeptical
• He does fear war with Austria and France, so he proposes a budge that would raise taxes and double the size of the army
• Parliament rejects this and liberals triumph in new elections
• As a result, William I appoints Otto von Bismarck Prussian prime minister and encourages him to defy Parliament

• Bismarck was devoted to the monarch and increasing power for himself and
Prussia, but was also flexible and pragmatic
• Bismarck says that William I will rule without parliamentary consent; that the great questions of the day will be answered with “blood and iron.”
• They collect new taxes and reorganize the army
• He wants Austria out of German affairs; Austro-Prussian War lasts only 7 weeks in 1866 and Austria loses to Prussia’s advanced army
• Bismarck offers Austria generous terms and they agree to leave German affairs

• He realizes he needs to make peace with the liberal middle class and nationalists
• He wants a conservative, authoritatian government, and convinces nationalists and middle class that this was preferable in a united Germany than years of struggle over creating truly liberal institutions
• He also creates a legislature with a lower house that is elected by universal male suffrage, thus appealing directly to the people
• Ultimate power lies with the Prussian king and the army, which only Bismarck and the king controlled
• He offers the liberals in parliament the opportunity to approve the spending that he and William had already done; they agree with German unification in sight

• Bismarck believes that a patriotic war with France will bring him the southern
Catholic states of Germany
• January 1871 Prussia defeats France soundly; south German states agree to join a German Empire
• William I proclaimed emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in
1871
• Bismarck imposed harsh terms on France; high reparations and the loss of
Alsace and Lorraine

• Slow modernization in Russia; in 1850s it is an agrarian society with serfdm
• Crimean War (185301856) – breakdown of the Congress of Vienna’s balance of power; was over Great Power competition in the Middle East and Russia’s desire to expand into European Ottoman territories
• War revealed the power of new weapons and convinced Russia’s leaders that they had fallen behind
• Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in 1861

• Alexander’s reforms were halfway measures; freed serfs had to buy land and pay dues
• Zemstvos – local councils that remained subordinate to nobles
• Censorship somewhat relaxed
• Economic modernization – focus on railroads and heavy industry
• Alexander III established high protective tariffs to protect Russian goods

• Russians defeated in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905
• Everyone aside from nobles are upset with Russian political leadership and this humiliating defeat brings it to the forefront
• Peaceful protest at the Winter Palace turns to violence – Bloody Sunday: a massacre of peaceful protesters at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in
1905, triggering a revolution that overturned absolute tsarist rule and made
Russian into a conservative constitutional monarchy
• October Manifest – granted full civil rights and promised a popularly elected
Duma (parliament) with real legislative power

• The tsar still retained great powers, including an absolute veto of any legislation passed by the Duma

• The Responsive Nation State
• Reichstag: popularly elected lower house of parliament in Germany
• Kulturkampf: Bismarck’s attack on the Catholic Church wthin Germany from
1870-1878, resulting from Pope Pious IX’s declaration of papal infallibility
• Bismarck begins protectionism for farmers through tariffs – much of Europe follows suit
• Bismarck also tried to stop the growth of the German Democratic Socialist
Party (SPD)

• Bismarck supports social welfare programs through essentially social security to defuse socialist appeal
• Bismarck is forced to resign in 1890 by the new emperor William II (r. 1888-
1918); he wants to appeal to workers
• SPD wins more seats in the Reichstag than any other party in 1912, but they are becoming far less radical and adopt a more patriotic tone

• Third Republic in 1871
• Paris Commune is defeated and monarchist can’t agree on a king, so it remains a republic
• Third Republic expands free, compulsory public education for all
• Dreyfus affair: A divisive case in which Alfred Freyfus, a Jewish captain in the
French army, was falsely accused and convicted of treason. The Catholic
Church sided with the army and the anti-Semites against Dreyfus; after he was declared innocent, the French government severed all ties with the
Church

• 1867 – the Second Reform Bill passed by Benjamin Disraeli and the
Conservative Party granted the right to vote to all middle-class males and the best paid workers
• 1884 – Third Reform Bill gave the vote to almost every adult male
• People’s Budget – A bill proposed after the Liberal Party came to power in
1906; it was designed to increase spending on social welfare services, but was initially vetoed in the House of Lords
• Irish home rule bills devolve into conflicts between Catholics nad Protestants

• Dual monarchy – one for Austria and one for Hungary

• Making national citizens
• Nationalism and Racism
• Jewish Emancipation and Modern Anti-Semitism
• Zionism