With One Revolution Comes Another

Between 1830 and 1848, Europe exploded with outbursts of revolution all over the continent. With the French Revolution having drawn to a close a mere 30 years before, countries all over Europe were buzzing with the idea of revolt and reform. Years later, historians look back at this inspired frenzy of revolt and deem many of the revolutions as utter failures. In Mrs.Gallaghers honors history 10 class we decided to form our own opinions on how successful each outcome was. After constructing our own scale of failure and success, we split into groups to tackle 5 different 19^th century European revolutions and formulate our own opinions on them. In our groups, we read secondary documents and viewed primary sources about our assigned revolution. We then used the knowledge we had acquired to make our own tests on each revolution using the app #SurveyMonkey, and put these tests into action on our peers!


We  #educreations to make this failure/ success chart that would be
tool in measuring the results of each revolution.

Our Survey Monkey--a few
slip-ups here and there, but
most students seemed to
have a grasp on the information
we were quizzing them on!

Our Survey Monkey-- lots of
successful results!

The revolution that my group focused on was that of 1848 in France. French middle class liberals wanted moderate political reforms, and the poor working class wanted social and economic change that would allow them to acquire jobs and provide for themselves. The revolution split into two more or less segments, the first being in February, and the second in June. During this first segment, the government catered to the people’s demands and created more jobs under Louis Felipe. During the so called “June Days”, Louis Felipe abdicated and workshops shut down, leaving the lower class angry and poor. Again people fought hard for the reforms and jobs that they wanted, creating barricades to protect themselves that playwright Victor Hugo describes to be made up of everything from chairs to roofs. Soon Napoleon III takes over and reinstates the political institutions that had “raised France to the height of prosperity and grandeur” 50 years earlier, making it almost as if no revolution had ever occurred. As the end of the day, our group came to the conclusion that the 1848 French revolution was somewhere at the halfway point between success and failure—nothing had gotten worse because of it, but no changes, like increased jobs, ad remained permanent.   

Don't forget to check out and take our survey monkey by clicking here!!

After each group’s source analysis and survey monkey was done, we took turns reading documents on each revolution and then taking each other’s quizzes. In general the results of each revolution seemed to be pretty neutral, taking in mind that the Decembrist revolt of 1825 was an exception as it was a complete and utter failure. For example, the French revolution of 1830 was successful in the sense that townspeople got absolutist king, Charles X, to abdicate. But new ruler, Louis Felipe favored the bourgeoisie and used policies that favored the middle class, leaving the lower class still unable to vote. Another example is Hungary’s 1848 revolution. Hungarian nationalists demanded an independent government from Austria, an end to serfdom, and a constitution giving citizens basic rights. After a short period where all of these requests were met, Austrian troops regained control and took away all reforms that had been made—it was as if no revolution had ever happened. After learning about the European revolutions of 1830 and 1848, I think that for the most part they were neither prosperous nor failures. Most of these revolutions didn’t result in any formal change, but they did get people thinking about change which would spark future revolutions to come.

Congress of Vienna: How to Not Lose Power AGAIN

Every ruler throughout time has had to find a way to maintain their power so they can continue to make an impact. Whether it be by force, acting as a strict monarch as Machiavelli describes in "The Prince", or by acting as a leader that the people like and want to support. In class, we recently studied the Congress of Vienna, a 19th century meeting between the leaders of every great European country. At this meeting, the main topic of discussion was how they would get back their power that had been previously taken from Napoleon Bonaparte, and how they would protect it from threatening forces. In class we analyzed readings and used padlet to collaborate on what decisions and precautions we thought these European leaders should take in order to maintain their power. Towards the end of class, Mrs. Gallagher revealed the decisions that were really made at the Congress of Vienna.

Check put our use of padlet to learn share our ideas/ opinions about the Congress of Vienna:

At the Congress of Vienna, the reactions of major European powers after defeating the threat of Napoleon formulated into a few concepts, one of them being the prinicipal of legitimacy. This principle stated that people formerly in power would gain back their rights to rule. Klemens Von Metternich, the Austrian monarch who threatened to impose war on Napoleon if he did not give up his conquest, issues the principal of legitimacy because he wants distribution of power to go back to the way it was before Napoleon. Like other European rulers, he establishes his rightful power to rule over his country. By 1815, the Congress of Vienna finished their meetings. As a result, Napoleon was viewed as the enemy, and former European rulers regained their power without threat.

Although the Congress of Vienna may have been extravagant and long winded, it was important because the powerful people at it made choices that helped them get rid of Napoleon and protect their own power as rulers. With Napoleon on the downfall, leaders at the Congress of Vienna reacted by establishing principles such as that of legitimacy. They felt desperate to protect their power because it had been taken from them for so long, so some of their decisions were a little extreme. One way that these leaders could have reacted that would have resulted better for their people would be by passing laws that they all agreed upon, so that the people wouldn't feel completely dominated by these "legitimate rulers", and would feel like they had a say. I believe that those in power should be willing to sacrifice some of it in order to help their people and do what's best for the general population. Overall the Congress of Vienna resulted in former rulers regaining their power, and Napoleon losing his, but perhaps these rulers could have gained their power back in a way that better took into consideration the opinions of their people.

To learn more about the congress of Vienna, be sure to check out this interactive map!

http://www.the-map-as-history.com/demos/tome01/index.php