The Age of Revolution is a period from the late-18th to the mid-19th centuries during which a number of significant revolutionary movements occurred in most of Europe and the Americas.[2] The period is noted for the change from absolutist monarchies to representative governments with a written constitution, and the creation of nation states.
Influenced by the new ideas of the Enlightenment, the American Revolution (1765–1783) is usually considered the starting point of the Age of Revolution. It in turn inspired the French Revolution of 1789,[citation needed] which rapidly spread to the rest of Europe through its wars. In 1799, Napoleontook power in France and continued the French Revolutionary Wars by conquering most of continental Europe. Although Napoleon imposed on his conquests several modern concepts such as equality before the law, or a civil code, his rigorous military occupation triggered national rebellions, notably in Spain and Germany. After Napoleon's defeat, European great powers forged the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, in an attempt to prevent future revolutions, and also restored the previous monarchies. Nevertheless, Spain was considerably weakened by the Napoleonic Wars and could not control its American colonies, almost all of which proclaimed their independence between 1810 and 1820. Revolution then spread back to southern Europe in 1820, with uprisings in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Continental Europe was shaken by two similar revolutionary waves in 1830 and 1848, also called the Spring of Nations. The democratic demands of the revolutionaries often merged with independence or national unification movements, such as in Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, etc. The violent repression of the Spring of Nations marked the end of the era.
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. It marked a major turning point in history and almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. This led to a rapid expansion of cities that resulted in social strains and disturbances.[4] For instance, economic grievances associated with this industrialization fed later revolutions such as those that transpired from 1848.[5] New social classes emerged including those that began to reject orthodox politics.[6] This is demonstrated by the rise of the urban middle class, which became a powerful force so that they had to be integrated into the political system.[7] The upheavals also led to old political ideas that were directed against the social arrangements of the preindustrial regime.[5]
The American Revolution brought about independence for the Thirteen Colonies of British America. This was the first European colony to claim independence. It was the birth of the United States of America, ultimately leading to the drafting and ratification of a U.S. Constitution that included a number of original features within a federated republic and a system of separation of powers and checks and balances. Those include but are not limited to an elected head of state, property rights, due process rights, and the rights of free speech, the press and religious practice.[8][9][10]
The British historian Eric Hobsbawm credits the French Revolution with giving the 19th century its ideology and politics, stating:
France made its revolutions and gave them their ideas, to the point where a tricolour of some kind became the emblem of virtually every emerging nation, and European (or indeed world) politics between 1789 and 1917 were largely the struggle for and against the principles of 1789, or the even more incendiary ones of 1793. France provided the vocabulary and the issues of liberal and radical-democratic politics for most of the world. France provided the first great example, the concept and the vocabulary of nationalism. France provided the codes of law, the model of scientific and technical organization, the metric system of measurement for most countries. The ideology of the modern world first penetrated the ancient civilizations which had hitherto resisted European ideas through French influence. This was the work of the French Revolution.[3]
The French Revolution was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799 that profoundly affected French and modern history, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy and nationalism.[11] Popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and aristocracy grew amidst an economic crisis following two expensive wars and years of bad harvests, motivating demands for change. These were couched in terms of Enlightenment ideals and caused the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789.
The precipitating event was that the King went public that the French state was essentially bankrupt, and because of that he convened the États généraux (Estates general) to replenish state coffers. The Estates-General was made up of 3 estates/orders:
The French tax regime was regressive, and traditional noble and bourgeois allies felt shut out.
Centralizing monarchical power, i.e. Royal absolutism, onward from Louis XIII in 1614[12] inward to the royal court in Versailles led to a snowball effect that ended up alienating both nobility and bourgeoisie. There was a tendency to play favorites with the tax regime, especially by exempting nobility from taxation. This led to a feeling of discrimination among the bourgeoisie, which itself was an engine of the Revolution[13]
It was also a question of numbers. The population of nobles versus that of the rest of France wildly disparate: nobles = .4-1.5% out of total population of ca. 28 million. The population of clergy versus the rest of France was even less: about 120,000 clergy total, out of which were 139 powerful and wealthy bishops (.0005% of total pop.); the majority of parish priests were as poor as their parishioners.[14]
Bourgeoisie
These were young men from commoner families who were not sustenance farmers and whose families could afford to send their sons to either study the law or take over the family business. When talking about these young (mainly) lawyers from this segment of society, one is also talking about products of the Enlightenment. As the former Financial Times chief foreign affairs columnist and author Ian Davidson puts it:
"French society, like others in much of Western Europe, was undergoing a colossal transformation. The ultra-intellectual Enlightenment of Montesquieu and Voltaire, Bach and Mozart, Isaac Newton and Adam Smith was just the tip of a vast change that was happening throughout society and producing an expanding, educated, literate and ambitious bourgeoisie."[14]
Part of this ambition was to enter a political scene that was always locked behind a door to which only the monarchy, clergy, and nobility had the keys. The durable shift here was that, by the time the Estates general convened, their knowledge of law gave them the tools to enter the political scene.
Attack and siege of the Crête-à-Pierrot during Haitian revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Republic of Haiti. The Haitian Revolution was the only slave revolt which led to the founding of a state. Furthermore, it is generally considered the most successful slave rebellion ever to have occurred and as a defining moment in the histories of both Europe and the Americas. The rebellion began with a revolt of black African slaves in August 1791. It ended in November 1803 with the French defeat at the Battle of Vertières. Haiti became an independent country on January 1, 1804.
One-third of French overseas trade and revenue came from Haitian sugar and coffee plantations. During the French Revolution the island was ignored, allowing the revolt to have some initial successes. However, after Napoleon became the first consul of France, he sent troops to suppress the revolt.
The war was known for cruelty on both sides, and extensive guerrilla warfare. French forces showed no mercy, as they were fighting blacks, who were not considered to be worthy opponents of the French army.
The French army suffered from severe outbreaks of disease, and the Haitians were under-equipped. Top leaders of both sides were killed, and the leader of the Haitians died in captivity.
In 1798, a revolt broke out against British rule in Ireland in the hopes of creating an independent Irish republic. The rebellion was initiated by the Society of United Irishmen and led by Theobald Wolfe Tone. The revolt was motivated by a combination of factors, including Irish nationalism, news of the success of the French Revolution, and resentment at the British-instituted Penal laws, which discriminated against Catholics and Presbyterians in Ireland. The rebellion failed and led to the Act of Union in 1801.
The Serbian Revolution was a national uprising and constitutional change in Serbia that took place between 1804 and 1835, during which the territory evolved from an Ottoman province into a rebel territory, a constitutional monarchy, and finally the modern Serbian state. The first part of the period, from 1804 to 1815, was marked by a violent struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire with three armed uprisings taking place(The First Serbian Uprising, Hadži Prodan's rebellion and the Second Serbian Uprising), ending with a ceasefire.[citation needed] During the later period (1815–1835) a peaceful consolidation of political power developed in the increasingly autonomous Serbia, culminating in the recognition of the right to hereditary rule by Serbian princes in 1830 and 1833 and the territorial expansion of the young monarchy. The adoption of the first written Constitution in 1835 abolished feudalism and serfdom, and made the country suzerain. The term "Serbian Revolution" was coined by a German academic historiographer, Leopold von Ranke, in his book Die Serbische Revolution, published in 1829. These events marked the foundation of the modern Principality of Serbia.[citation needed]
Scholars have characterized the Serbian War of Independence and subsequent national liberation as a revolution because the uprisings were started by broad masses of rural Serbian people who were in severe class conflict with the Turkish landowners as a political and economic masters at the same time, similar to Greece in 1821–1832.[15]
Latin America experienced independence revolutions in the early 19th century that separated the colonies from Spain and Portugal, creating new nations. These movements were generally led by the ethnically Spanish but locally born Creole class; these were often wealthy citizens that held high positions of power but were still poorly respected by the European-born Spaniards. One such Creole was Simón Bolívar, who led several revolutions throughout South America and helped establish Gran Colombia. Another important figure was José de San Martín, who helped create the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and became the first president of Peru.
Greece in the early 1800s was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. A series of revolts, starting in 1821, began the conflict. The Ottoman Empire sent in forces to suppress the revolts. By 1827, forces from Russia, Great Britain, and France entered the conflict, helping the Greeks drive the Turkish forces off the Peloponnese Peninsula. The Turks finally recognized Greece as a free nation in May 1832.
The Revolutions of 1820 were a series of revolutionary uprisings in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece. Unlike the wars of 1830, these wars tended to be in the outer regions of Europe.
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history, but within a year, reactionary forces had regained control, and the revolutions collapsed.
The political impact of the 1848 revolutions was more evident in Austria in comparison to the revolution's effects in countries like Germany. This is attributed to the way the upheavals in Vienna resulted in greater loss of life and gained stronger support from intellectuals, students, and the working class.[18] An account described the German experience as less concerned with national issues, although it succeeded in breaking down class barriers.[18] There was a previously prevalent view that there was only one revolutionary event in Germany but recent scholarship pointed to a fragmented picture of several revolutions happening at the same time.[19]
The 1848 revolutions were also notable because of the increased participation of women. While women rarely participated in revolutionary activities, there were those who performed supportive and auxiliary roles such as the cases of the women's political club in Vienna, which demanded revolutionary measures from the Austrian Constituent Assembly, and the Parisian women who protested and proposed their own solutions to social problems, particularly those involving their rights and crafts.[20]
The Eureka Rebellion was a 20-minute shootout between the miners of Ballarat, Victoria, and the British Army. After the imposition of Gold Mining Licences, that being that a person had to have one of these to mine gold, and which cost 30 shillings a month to own a license, the miners decided that it was too much. The Ballarat miners started rallies at Bakery Hill and burnt their licenses, took an oath under the flag of the Southern Cross, elected Peter Lalor as their rebellion leader, and built a stockade (a makeshift fort) around the diggings. Eventually, the British troops, led by Governor Charles Hotham of Ballarat fired upon the stockade. The miners fired back and lasted 20 minutes before their stockade was stormed by British troops. Most of the miners were arrested by the British colonial authorities, and taken to trial. If found guilty, they would hang for high treason. All were eventually acquitted. The Eureka Rebellion is controversially identified with the birth of democracy in Australia and interpreted by many as a political revolt.[21][22][23]
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major, but ultimately unsuccessful, uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40mi (64km) northeast of Delhi (that area is now Old Delhi). It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859. Its name is contested, and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, and the First War of Independence.
The Paris Commune was a revolutionary socialist government that controlled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. It was established by radicalized defectors from the French National Guard, which had been mobilized to defend Paris in the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 28 January 1871).
The Concert of Europe was a general agreement among the great powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence. Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes and jockeying for position and influence, the Concert was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. There is considerable scholarly dispute over the exact nature and duration of the Concert. Some scholars argue that it fell apart nearly as soon as it began in the 1820s when the great powers disagreed over the handling of liberal revolts in Italy, while others argue that it lasted until the outbreak of World War I and others for points in between. For those arguing for a longer duration, there is generally agreement that the period after the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War (1853–1856) represented a different phase with different dynamics than the earlier period.
The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire were a set of revolutions that took place in the Austrian Empire from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalist character: the Empire, ruled from Vienna, included ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Bohemians (Czechs), Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Slovenes, Slovaks, Romanians, Croats, Italians, and Serbs; all of whom attempted in the course of the revolution to either achieve autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities. The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity.
The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti.
In diplomatic history, the Eastern question was the issue of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries and the subsequent strategic competition and political considerations of the European great powers in light of this. Characterized as the "sick man of Europe", the relative weakening of the empire's military strength in the second half of the eighteenth century threatened to undermine the fragile balance of power system largely shaped by the Concert of Europe. The Eastern question encompassed myriad interrelated elements: Ottoman military defeats, Ottoman institutional insolvency, the ongoing Ottoman political and economic modernization programme, the rise of ethno-religious nationalism in its provinces, and Great Power rivalries. In an attempt to triangulate between these various concerns, the historian Leslie Rogne Schumacher has proposed the following definition of the Eastern Question:
The "Eastern Question" refers to the events and the complex set of dynamics related to Europe's experience of and stake in the decline in political, military and economic power and regional significance of the Ottoman Empire from the latter half of the eighteenth century to the formation of modern Turkey in 1923.
The Atlantic Revolutions were numerous revolutions in the Atlantic World in the late 18th and early 19th century. Following the Age of Enlightenment, ideas critical of absolutist monarchies began to spread. A revolutionary wave soon occurred, with the aim of ending monarchical rule, emphasizing the ideals of the Enlightenment, and spreading liberalism.
The Revolutions of 1830 were a revolutionary wave in Europe which took place in 1830. It included two "romantic nationalist" revolutions, the Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the July Revolution in France along with rebellions in Congress Poland, Italian states, Portugal and Switzerland. It was followed eighteen years later, by another and much stronger wave of revolutions known as the Revolutions of 1848.
The majority of what is now the Republic of Serbia was incorporated in the Ottoman Empire from the mid 15th century until the early 19th century. From the early 18th century, Vojvodina was no longer incorporated in the empire as it was ceded to the Habsburgs.
The decolonization of the Americas occurred over several centuries as most of the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. The American Revolution was the first in the Americas, and the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was a victory against a great power, aided by France and Spain, Britain's enemies. The French Revolution in Europe followed, and collectively these events had profound effects on the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies in the Americas. A revolutionary wave followed, resulting in the creation of several independent countries in Latin America. The Haitian Revolution lasted from 1791 to 1804 and resulted in the independence of the French slave colony. The Peninsular War with France, which resulted from the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, caused Spanish Creoles in Spanish America to question their allegiance to Spain, stoking independence movements that culminated in various Spanish American wars of independence (1808–33), which were primarily fought between opposing groups of colonists and only secondarily against Spanish forces. At the same time, the Portuguese monarchy fled to Brazil during the French invasion of Portugal. After the royal court returned to Lisbon, the prince regent, Pedro, remained in Brazil and in 1822 successfully declared himself emperor of a newly independent Brazilian Empire.
There were many resistance movements in partitioned Poland between 1795 and 1918. Although some of the szlachta was reconciled to the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the possibility of Polish independence was kept alive by events within and without Poland throughout the 19th century. Poland's location on the North European Plain became especially significant in a period when its neighbours, the Kingdom of Prussia and Russia were intensely involved in European rivalries and alliances and modern nation states took form over the entire continent.
The Brabant Revolution or Brabantine Revolution, sometimes referred to as the Belgian Revolution of 1789–1790 in older writing, was an armed insurrection that occurred in the Austrian Netherlands between October 1789 and December 1790. The revolution, which occurred at the same time as revolutions in France and Liège, led to the brief overthrow of Habsburg rule and the proclamation of a short-lived polity, the United Belgian States.
The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date.
The rise of nationalism in Europe was stimulated by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. American political science professor Leon Baradat has argued that “nationalism calls on people to identify with the interests of their national group and to support the creation of a state – a nation-state – to support those interests.” Nationalism was the ideological impetus that, in a few decades, transformed Europe. Rule by monarchies and foreign control of territory was replaced by self-determination and newly formed national governments. Some countries, such as Germany and Italy were formed by uniting various regional states with a common "national identity". Others, such as Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Poland were formed by uprisings against the Ottoman or Russian Empires. Romania is a special case, formed by the unification of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 and later gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.
The Serbian Revolution was a national uprising and constitutional change in Serbia that took place between 1804 and 1835, during which this territory evolved from an Ottoman province into a rebel territory, a constitutional monarchy, and modern Serbia.
The military history of North America can be viewed in a number of phases.
Revolutions during the 1820s included revolutions in Russia, Spain, Portugal, and the Italian states for constitutional monarchies, and for independence from Ottoman rule in Greece. Unlike the revolutionary wave in the 1830s, these tended to take place in the peripheries of Europe.
The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in European history. In the short-term, France lost thousands of its countrymen in the form of émigrés, or emigrants who wished to escape political tensions and save their lives. A number of individuals settled in the neighboring countries, while some settled in Russia, and many also went to Canada and the United States. The displacement of these Frenchmen led to a spread of French culture, policies regulating immigration, and a safe haven for Royalists and other counterrevolutionaries to outlast the violence of the French Revolution. The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and politics for more than a century. The closer other countries were, the greater and deeper was the French impact, bringing liberalism, but also practices such as direct democracy and revolutionary terror along with the end of many feudal or traditional laws and practices. However, there was also a conservative counter-reaction that defeated Napoleon, reinstalled the Bourbon kings, and in some ways reversed the new reforms.
A revolutionary wave is a series of revolutions occurring in various locations within a particular timespan. In many cases, past revolutions and revolutionary waves have inspired current ones, or an initial revolution has inspired other concurrent "affiliate revolutions" with similar aims. The causes of revolutionary waves have become the subjects of study by historians and political philosophers, including Robert Roswell Palmer, Crane Brinton, Hannah Arendt, Eric Hoffer, and Jacques Godechot.
In 1789, France's National Constituent Assembly made the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In 1791, the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue began the Haitian Revolution, aimed at the overthrow of the colonial reign.
The French revolutionary government granted citizenship and freedom to free people of color in May 1791, but white planters in Saint-Domingue refused to comply with this decision. This was the catalyst for the 1791 slave rebellion, a key event for the Haitian Revolution with which the new citizens demanded their granted rights.
↑ Matson, Cathy (July 2005). "The Atlantic Economy in an Era of Revolutions: An Introduction". William and Mary Quarterly.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
1 2 3 Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, London, Abacus (1962).
↑ Smelser, Neil (2011). Theory of Collective Behavior. New Orleans: Quid Pro Books. p.311. ISBN9781610270854.
1 2 Wolfe, James (2015). The Industrial Revolution: Steam and Steel. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. p.85. ISBN9781680480283.
↑ Hudson, Pat (1992). The Industrial Revolution. New York: Hodder Arnold. p.35. ISBN9780713165319.
↑ Owens, Geoffrey (2017). From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War. London: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN9780006387503.
↑ Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750–1820 (1997).
↑ Cirkovic, Sima (2008). The Serbs. John Wiley & Sons. pp.290–295.
↑ Clive H. Church, "Forgotten Revolutions: recent work on the revolutions of 1830 in Europe." European Studies Review 7.1 (1977): 95-106.
↑ Clive H. Church, Europe in 1830: Revolution and political change (1983)
1 2 Hahn, Hans Joachim (2014). The 1848 Revolutions in German-Speaking Europe. Oxon: Routledge. p.107. ISBN9780582357655.
↑ Evans, Robert John; von Strandmann, Hartmut Pogge (2002). The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.132. ISBN0199249970.
↑ Sperber, Jonathan (2005). The European Revolutions, 1848–1851. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.188. ISBN0521839076.
↑ 'Dr. H.V. Evatt, leader of the ALP, wrote that "The Eureka Stockade was of crucial importance in the making of Australian democracy"; Robert Menzies, later Liberal Prime Minister, said that "the Eureka revolution was an earnest attempt at democratic government"; Ben Chifley, former ALP Prime Minister, wrote that "Eureka was more than an incident or passing phase. It was greater in significance than the short-lived revolt against tyrannical authority would suggest. The permanency of Eureka in its impact on our development was that it was the first real affirmation of our determination to be masters of our own political destiny." (from "The Eureka Rebellion". National Republicans. Archived from the original on 8 March 2017., quoting Historical Studies: Eureka Supplement, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1965, pages 125–6)
↑ Geoffrey Blainey commented in 1963 that "Eureka became a legend, a battlecry for nationalists. republicans, liberals, radicals, or communists, each creed finding in the rebellion the lessons they liked to see." ..."In fact the new colonies' political constitutions were not affected by Eureka, but the first Parliament that met under Victoria's new constitution was alert to the democratic spirit of the goldfields, and passed laws enabling each adult man in Victoria to vote at elections, to vote by secret ballot, to stand for the Legislative Assembly." Blainey, Geoffrey (1963). The Rush That Never Ended. Melbourne University Press. pp.56–7.
Further reading
Israel, Jonathan I.. Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2017.
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