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France

The Legacy of the Revolution and the Empire

France's status as nation was reinforcedby the Revolution in 1789. On 14 July 1790, a year after the fall of the Bastille, delegates from all parts of the country flocked to Paris to celebrate the Fête de la Fédération and proclaim their allegiance to a single, common nation. The ideals proclaimed were: individual freedom and mutual respect; the right of peoples to self-determination; and institutions which would protect the welfare of citizens.

These aspirations, which were codified in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 26 August 1789, grew out of the work of Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century and were heavily influenced by the ideas of authors like Montesquieu, who laid down the principle of separation of the legislature, executive and judiciary in his The Spirit of the Law of 1748, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who developed theories of political equality and the sovereignty of the people in The Social Contract (1762). These texts had considerable influence on the writers of the Constitution of the United States of Americain 1787. The values propounded in them are seen as universal and may be considered the cornerstone of modern democracy. They had widespread repercussions and provided a model for national liberation movements during the nineteenth century. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948 also owed much to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

But these principles did not immediately become law. Many of them were enshrined in the first French Constitution in 1791, and even more in the 1793 Constitution; however, only time and numerous political struggles and social conflicts were to see them affirmed as inalienable rights. The First Republic was proclaimed on 22 September 1792, but the democratic Constitution it produced in 1793 was never implemented. Civil war and clashes with the many other European states who banded together against France ended in the Reign of Terror - a far cry from the noble ideals of 1789. After Robespierre's execution in July 1794, the Thermidorian Convention (1794-1795) and the Directory (1795-1797) led to a coup by Napoleon Bonaparte, who took over first as Consul (1799-1804), then as Emperor of the French. The monarchy had been abolished in 1792; it was now superseded by the Empire and, however different the structures and organization of that Empire might be, the French, who had briefly been citizens, were once more subjects.

During the wars of the Revolution and the Empire,Francetried to impose its model and institutions on many other European countries; but its initial desire to free "oppressed peoples" was soon replaced by a desire to conquer and annex territories, revealing the "right of peoples to self-determination" as empty words. Franceceased to be an empire in 1815, but freedom and democracy were not reinstated. The monarchy was restored with the accession of Louis XVIII. He was succeeded by Charles X in 1824 and, following the 1830 Revolution in July of that year, Louis-Philippe reigned for 18 years. The 1848 Revolution instituted the Second Republic which, like the First, ended in a coup d'état, this time by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. The Second Empire he created lasted from 1852 to 1870.Under these various regimes, citizens had scarcely any say in political matters. Until 1848, only those who paid the poll tax voted, which effectively restricted the vote to a minority of citizens, and the political feelings of the masses were chiefly expressed through isolated incidents of revolt which were swiftly quelled. Nonetheless, under the surface of political instability, fundamental changes were taking place, which laid the foundations of modern France. They concerned principally the territorial and administrative structure of the country. In 1789,France was not governed in the same way in different parts of the country. Instead, it was divided into different constituencies (baileys, governorships, generalities, provincial states and countries) which had evolved at different stages and now overlapped with each other. With such a complicated system, there were often delays and conflicts over areas of responsibility, making it difficult to govern the country efficiently. In this respect, the Revolution and the Empire were to complete the process of centralization begun under the Ancient Regime. In 1790, the territory was divided into départements (counties), which in turn were divided into cantons made up of communes (municipalities or districts). These are still the administrative units to which power is devolved locally inFrance. Napoleon completed the system, rationalizing it and making it more efficient through the Law of 28 Pluviôse Year VIII (17 February 1800 ) which created the posts of prefect and mayor, although mayors at that time were appointed, rather than elected as they are today. Administrative authorities were thus standardized on a basis of equality and staff were thenceforward recruited by competitive examination, substituting a meritocratic system for the old system of privilege.

The Revolutionary regime and Empire also saw the birth of genuine public services and the strengthening of the role of the state in national and regional development, the creation of infrastructures and town planning. The will to unite the French people also resulted in the creation of norms and standards which would be valid all over France, as exemplified not only by the institution of a Civil Code, but also by the systematic registration of property and the decision to opt for a metric system of weights and measures. The metric system is now universally used inFranceand widely used in the rest of the world.

The period from the Revolution to the Second Empire was also characterised by profound economic and social transformations.Whilst it is true that the political upheavals which took place in France from 1789 to 1815 had afforded Englanda certain economic advantage, France too had entered the industrial age of coal, steam, modern foundries, large-scale textile factories and railways. With hindsight, the Second Empire appears to have been a crucial period, particularly from 1860 onwards. The people had been deprived of democracy, racketeering was rife and the colonial adventure begun in 1830 with the conquest of Algeria was continuing; but, at the same time, the country was undergoing the rapid yet profound changes that were to turn it into a modern power - industrial development, the creation of banks and the department stores which heralded modern retailing, the transformation of towns and cities, substantial extension of the rail network, a reforestation policy and measures against soil erosion. But whilst the economic boom was undeniable, social progress lagged behind and, during this first half of the nineteenth century, living conditions were tough and the working classes endured acute poverty and overcrowding in the industrial towns.

1870-1914: France as a Republic, Crises and Consolidation

After France's defeat byGermanyin 1870, the Third Republic came to be seen as a period of stability and consolidation, despite domestic unrest and the terrible damage done to the country by the First World War.

The Third Republic was proclaimed on 4 September 1870 and Adolphe Thiers became its first President on 31 August 1871, after the Paris Commune uprising was brutally crushed towards the end of May 1871. This regime had a difficult start, but it was to prove the most long-lasting since the Revolution, surviving right up until 1940.

Recent Events:

November 7, 1852	Senatus consultum modifying the constitution: re–establishment of the Empire under Napoleon III.
1856	Publication of Tocqueville’s Old Régime and the French Regime and Guizot’s History of the English Revolution.
September 4, 1870	Proclamation of the French Republic after defeat of Napoleon III by the Prussians.
March 28, 1871	Proclamation of the Paris Commune that refused to accept French peace negotiations with Germany.
May 10, 1871	Treaty of Frankfurt: France cedes to the Prussians Alsace and part of Lorraine and has to pay five billion francs in indemnity.
July 5, 1871	The Comte de Chambord (Henri V), back in France, refuses to abandon the royalist white flag.
November 13, 1871	Thiers declares that the Republic exists and that it will be conservative.

Russia

Since the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the Russian Tsars had followed a fairly consistent policy of drawing more political power away from the nobility and into their own hands. This centralization of authority in the Russian state had usually been accomplished in one of two ways--either by simply taking power from the nobles and braving their opposition (Ivan the Terrible was very good at this), or by compensating the nobles for decreased power in government by giving them greater power over their land and its occupants. Serfdom, as this latter system was known, had increased steadily inRussiafrom the time of Ivan the Terrible, its inventor. By the time of Catherine the Great, the Russian Tsars enjoyed virtually autocratic rule over their nobles. However, they had in a sense purchased this power by granting those nobles virtually autocratic power over the serfs, who by this time had been reduced to a state closer to slavery than to peasantry.

By the nineteenth century, both of these relationships were under attack. In the Decembrist revolt in 1825, a group of young, reformist military officers attempted to force the adoption of a constitutional monarchy inRussiaby preventing the accession of Nicholas I. They failed utterly, and Nicholas became the most reactionary leader in Europe. Nicholas' successor, Alexander II, seemed by contrast to be amenable to reform. In 1861, he abolished serfdom, though the emancipation didn't in fact bring on any significant change in the condition of the peasants. As the country became more industrialized, its political system experienced even greater strain. Attempts by the lower classes to gain more freedom provoked fears of anarchy, and the government remained extremely conservative. As Russia became more industrialized, larger, and far more complicated, the inadequacies of autocratic Tsarist rule became increasingly apparent.

Recent Events:

1866	Moscow Conservatory founded; Tchaikovsky becomes a professor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is published
1867	March 30 - Alaska sold to the United States of America
1869	Tolstoy's War and Peace is published
1870	April 22 Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniks) Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) is born Mendeleyev's Principles of Chemistry
1872	Russian translation of Marx's Capital Carl Faberge takes over his father's jewelry business
1873	Beginning of the movement To the People

Germany

The terrible destruction of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-48, a war partially religious in nature, reduced German particularism, as did the reforms enacted during the age of enlightened absolutism (1648-1789) and later the growth of nationalism and industrialism in the nineteenth century. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna stipulated that the several hundred states existing in Germany before the French Revolution be replaced with thirty-eight states, some of them quite small. In subsequent decades, the two largest of these states,AustriaandPrussia, vied for primacy in a Germany that was gradually unifying under a variety of social and economic pressures. The politician responsible for German unification was Otto von Bismarck, whose brilliant diplomacy and ruthless practice of statecraft secured Prussian hegemony in a united Germany in 1871. The new state, proclaimed the German Empire, did not includeAustriaand its extensive empire of many non-German territories and peoples.

Imperial Germany prospered. Its economy grew rapidly, and by the turn of the century it rivaled Britain's in size. Although the empire's constitution did not provide for a political system in which the government was responsible to parliament, political parties were founded that represented the main social groups. Roman Catholic and socialist parties contended with conservative and progressive parties and with a conservative monarchy to determine how Germanyshould be governed.

Italy

The Risorgimento

The repressive and reactionary policies imposed on Italy by the Austrian leader Klemens, Fürst von Metternich, and the Congress of Vienna aggravated popular discontent, and the expansion of Austrian control in Italy stimulated intense anti-foreign sentiment. These conditions gave rise to the Italian unification movement known as the Risorgimento. Revolutionaries and patriots, especially Giuseppe Mazzini, began to work actively for unity and independence. A series of unsuccessful revolts led in the 1820s by the Carbonari, a conspiratorial nationalist organization, and in the 1830s by Mazzini's Young Italy group, provided the background for the Revolution of 1848, felt in every major Italian city and throughout Europe . Charles Albert, king of Sardinia (1831-49), declared war on Austria and, along with some other Italian rulers, gave his people a constitution. However, both the war of liberation and the revolutionary republics set up in Rome, Venice, and Tuscany were crushed by Austriain 1849. Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, who retained the Sardinian constitution.

Italy's Unity

Under the progressive, liberal leadership of Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour,Sardinia led Italy to final unification. In 1859, after gaining the support of France and England, Cavour, in alliance with the French emperor Napoleon III, seized Lombardy, and in 1860 all of Italy north of the Papal States, except Venetia , was added to Sardinia . Giuseppe Garibaldi, a popular hero and guerrilla leader, led an expedition of 1,000 "Red Shirts" to Sicily in the same year and subsequently seized the southern part of peninsularItaly, which with Sicily constituted the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi turned his conquests over to Victor Emmanuel, and in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed. Only Venetia and Rome were not included in the new state (the former was added in 1866 and the latter in 1870). Italians at last had their own country.

The Kingdom Of Italy

The new nation faced many serious problems. A large debt, few natural resources, and almost no industry or transportation facilities combined with extreme poverty, a high illiteracy rate, and an uneven tax structure to weigh heavily on the Italian people. Regionalism was still strong, and only a fraction of the citizens had the right to vote. To make matters worse, the pope, angered over the loss of Rome and the papal lands, refused to recognize the Italian state. In the countryside, banditry and peasant anarchism resulted in government repression, which was often brutal. Meanwhile during the 1880s a socialist movement began to develop among workers in the cities. The profound differences between the impoverished south and the wealthier north widened. Parliament did little to resolve these problems: throughout this so-called Liberal Period (1870-1915), the nation was governed by a series of coalitions of liberals to the left and right of center who were unable to form a clear-cut majority. (The most notable leaders of the period were Francesco Crispi and Giovanni Giolitti.) Despite the fact that some economic and social progress took place before World War I, Italy during that time was a dissatisfied and crisis-ridden nation.

Spain

In 1868 an army revolt, led by exiled officers determined to force Isabella from the throne, brought General Juan Prim, an army hero and popular Progressive leader, to power. Isabella's abdication inaugurated a period of experimentation with a liberal monarchy, a federal republic, and finally a military dictatorship.

As prime minister, Prim canvassed Europe for a ruler to replace Isabella. A tentative offer made to a Hohenzollern prince was sufficient spark to set off the Franco-Prussian War (1870- 71). Prim found a likely royal candidate in Amadeo of Savoy, son of the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel II. Shortly after Amadeo's arrival inSpain, Prim was assassinated, leaving the new king, without a mentor, at the mercy of hostile politicians. The constitution bequeathed to the new monarchy did not leave Amadeo sufficient power to supervise the formation of a stable government. Mistrustful of Prim's foreign prince, factional leaders refused to cooperate with, or to advise, Amadeo. Deserted finally by the army, Amadeo abdicated, leaving a rump parliament to proclaimSpaina federal republic.

The constitution of the First Republic (1873-74) provided for internally self-governing provinces that were bound to the federal government by voluntary agreement. Jurisdiction over foreign and colonial affairs and defense was reserved for Madrid . In its eight-month life, the federal republic had four presidents, none of whom could find a prime minister to form a stable cabinet. The government could not decentralize quickly enough to satisfy local radicals. Cities and provinces made unilateral declarations of autonomy. Madrid lost control of the country, and once again the army stepped in to rescue the "national honor." A national government in the form of a unitary republic served briefly as the transparent disguise for an interim military dictatorship.

Recent Events

1868	The revolution which overthrows Isabel II is headed by Generals Serrano and Prim.
1870	Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, is elected king of Spain. General Prim is assassinated.
1873	Amadeo I abdicates and the Cortes proclaim a republic.
1873-1874	The First Republic - The Republic has to deal with war in Cuba, the third Carlist war and the cantonalist rising of the South and South East of the country. After the presidencies of the Republic by Figueras, Pi y Margall, Salmeron and Castelar, the 'pronunciamiento' of General Pavia dissolves the Cortes and establishes the government of General Serrano.
1874	The Restoration - General Martinez Campos rises in Sagunto and proclaims the restoration of the Bourbons (Borbones) under Alfonso XII

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