4-3 Notes: Nationalism and Unification

Breakdown of the Concert of Europe

• The nationalist goals of the 1848 revolutionaries would be achieved later. By 1871 both Germany and Italy were unified, a change caused by the Crimean War.
• The Crimean War was rooted in a conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, which controlled much of the Balkans in southeastern Europe. The power of the Ottoman Empire declined in the nineteenth century.
• Russia wanted to expand into the Balkans so it could have access to the Dardanelles and the Mediterranean Sea, giving it the naval might to be the great power in eastern Europe. Russia invaded the Turkish Balkan provinces of Moldavia and Walachia, and the Ottomans declared war on Russia. Great Britain and France, fearing Russia’s ambitions, allied with the Ottomans. The Crimean War was on.
• Heavy losses caused the Russians to seek peace. In the Treaty of Paris of 1856, Russia agreed to have Moldavia and Walachia placed under the protection of all the great powers.
• The Crimean War destroyed the Concert of Europe. Austria and Russia had been the two powers maintaining order, but now they were enemies because Austria had not supported Russia in the Crimean War due to its own interests in the Balkans.
• Russia withdrew from European affairs for the next 20 years. Austria had no friends among the great powers, and Germany and Italy now could unify.

Italian Unification

• In 1850 Austria was still the dominant power on the Italian Peninsula. After 1848 people looked to the northern Italian state of Piedmont to lead the fight for unification.
• The king of Piedmont named Camillo di Cavour his prime minister. Cavour pursued economic expansion, which gave the government enough money to support a large army. He then made an alliance with the French emperor Louis-Napoleon, knowing his army by itself could not defeat Austria, and provoked the Austrians into invading Piedmont. It was 1859.
• The conflict resulted in a peace settlement that made Piedmont an independent state. Cavour’s success caused nationalists in other northern Italian states to overthrow their governments and join their states to Piedmont.

• In southern Italy a new patriotic leader for unification emerged—Giuseppe Garibaldi. He raised an army of one thousand volunteers, called Red Shirts because of the color of their uniforms.
• France ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Sicily and Naples). A revolt broke out in Sicily against the Bourbon king, and Garibaldi and his forces landed on the island. By July 1860 they controlled most of the island. They marched up the mainland and Naples soon fell. Garibaldi turned his conquests over to Piedmont, and in 1861 a new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed. King Victor Emmanuel II, who had been king of Piedmont, was crowned ruler.
• Italy’s full unification would mean adding Venetia, held by Austria, and Rome, held by the pope and supported by the French. The Italian state allied with Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. When Prussia won, it gave Venetia to the Italians. France withdrew from Rome in 1870. The Italian army annexed Rome that same year, and Rome became the capital of the united Italy.

German Unification

• Prussia led Germans unification.
• 1860s: William I tried to make the army bigger, and tried to raise taxes to pay for it
• When the legislature refused to levy the tax, William I appointed a new prime minister, Otto von Bismarck.
• One of the greatest 19th c. followers of realpolitik - practical politics that don’t care about ethics and are more focused on power.
• He ignored the legislature because he believed that the army was more important than the people having a say
• Allied with Austria and took over Denmark
• Austro-Prussian War (1866): Bismark turns against his allies, Austria, and they fight. Prussia’s army is better, and they win.
• Prussia organized northern German states into a North German Confederation.
• The southern German states signed military alliances with Prussia for protection against France, even though Prussia was Protestant and southern Germany was Catholic.
• France feared a strong German state.
• Franco-Prussian War (1870): Both France and Prussia argued over who would become king of Spain; this led to war.
• Prussia won, advancing into France, capturing the king (Napoleon III) and an entire army.
• Paris surrendered and signed a treaty in 1871.
• France paid 5 billion francs and gave up the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
• After the Prussian victory, the southern states joined the North German Confederation.
• On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors in the palace of Versailles, William I of Prussia was proclaimed kaiser, or emperor, of the Second German Empire (the first was the Holy Roman Empire).
• Military power combined with industrial resources made the new state the strongest power on the European continent.

Nationalism and Reform in Europe
Britain

• A good economy added to its stability.
• After 1850, the industrial middle class was prosperous and the wages of the industrial working class were beginning to go up.
• The British feeling of national pride was reflected in Queen Victoria (ruled 1837-1901). Her sense of duty and moral respectability were reflected in her era, known as the Victorian Age.

France

• After 1848 events in France moved towards restoring the monarchy.
• In the 1852 plebiscite, or popular vote, 97% voted to restore the empire. Louis-Napoleon became Napoleon III.
• Napoleon III’s government was authoritarian.
• He controlled the army, police, and civil service.
• Only he could introduce laws or declare war.
• He limited civil liberties and focused on expanding the economy.
• Government subsidies built railroads, harbors, canals, and roads. Iron production tripled.
• He also fixed up Paris, putting in better streets, big buildings, public squares, an underground sewage system, a public water supply, and gaslights. It was modern.
• After the Prussians defeated the French the Second Empire fell.

Austria

• The multinational state of Austria had been able to stop attempts of its ethnic groups for independence.
• After 1848 and 1849, the Hapsburg rulers restored centralized, autocratic government.
• After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria had to make a deal with Hungary
• Compromise of 1867: It created the dual Austria-Hungary monarchy.
• Each party had its own constitution, legislature, bureaucracy, and capital—Vienna for Austria and Budapest for Hungary.
• Holding the two states together was a single monarch (Francis Joseph), a common army, foreign policy, and a shared financial system.
• Domestically, Hungary had become an independent state. Other states were not happy with the compromise.

Russia

• At the beginning of the 19th c,, Russia was a highly rural, autocratic state with a divine-right monarch with absolute power.
• When Russia was defeated in the Crimean War, Czar Alexander knew that Russia was falling behind western Europe and needed to modernize.
• New Reforms: 1861- he freed the serfs with an emancipation edict.
• Peasants could now own property and marry as they wished.
• The government bought land from the landlords and gave it to the peasants.
• Landowners often kept the best land for themselves, and the system was not helpful to peasants. Emancipation had led to an unhappy, land-starved peasantry following old ways of farming.
• A group of radicals assassinated Alexander II in 1881. His son and successor returned to the old methods of repression—soldiers, secret police, censorship, and the like.

USA

• The U.S. Constitution followed the ideals of nationalism and liberalism.
• Federalists and Republicans fought over the division of power. The Federalists wanted a strong central government, the Republicans wanted strong state governments.
• The election of Andrew Jackson opened a new, more democratic era of American politics. The right to vote was extended to all adult white males, regardless of property.
• By the mid 19th American unity was threatened by slavery. The South wanted to keep slavery. Abolitionism, a movement to end slavery, arose in the North and challenged the South.
• After Abraham Lincoln was elected president, South Carolina and six other southern states seceded (withdrew) from the Union, and the Civil War(1861-1865) broke out
• Over 600,000 soldiers died.
• In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves.
• On April 9, 1865, the South surrendered and national unity prevailed in the United States.