Revolutions of 1848

The revolutions of 1848, also known as the springtime of the peoples were a series of revolutions throughout Europe that spanned almost two years, between January 1848 and October 1849. They remain the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date.

The revolutions varied widely in their aims but generally opposed conservative systems, such as absolute monarchy and feudalism, and sought to establish nation states, founded on constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. The revolutionary wave began with the revolution in Sicily in January and spread across Europe after the revolution in France in February 1848. Over fifty countries were affected, but with no significant coordination or cooperation among their respective revolutionaries. Some of the major political contributing factors were widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership, demands for more participation in government and democracy, for freedom of the press, and by the working class for economic rights, and the rise of nationalism. Other economic factors, such as the European potato failure, triggered mass starvation, migration, and civil unrest.

The uprisings were led by temporary coalitions of workers and reformers, including figures from the middle and upper classes (the bourgeoisie); however, these coalitions did not hold together for long. Many of the revolutions were quickly suppressed, as tens of thousands of people were killed, and even more were forced into exile. Despite this, significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most prominent in France, Italy, the Austrian Empire, and the states of the German Confederation that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The wave of uprisings ended in October 1849.

Background

The revolutions were shaped by a wide variety of causes, which were linked to the short- and long-term socioeconomic transformations brought about by industrialization and the political legacy of the French Revolution. These included the adoption of modern agricultural practices and subsequent rapid population growth, the intensification of industrialization and urbanization, the repressive political environment established in reaction to the French Revolution, and the spread of ideologies opposed to repressive governments, including liberalism, radicalism, and nationalism. In addition to longer-term trends, an acute economic crisis between 1845 and 1847, resulting from the combination of a food crisis and an industrial recession, led to significant civil unrest and revolutionary agitation. According to Jonathan Sperber, the failure of governments to adjust to popular demands for reform in the wake of these crises provided the immediate trigger for the revolutions, and by the end of 1847, a revolution in Europe had become widely anticipated.

Social discontent and conflict

In rural areas

According to Jonathan Sperber, conflict over agricultural land rights was the most prevalent form of social conflict in the pre-revolutionary period. The abolition of feudalism in parts of Western and Central Europe (especially in France) in the wake of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had major ramifications for the rural populace. Customary rights that peasants had once held on common land, especially to acquire wood from communal forests, were increasingly lost with the enclosure and privatization of the commons. These processes were often aided by modernizing states, such as France, which, with the enactment of the Forest Code of 1827, legally abolished peasants' rights to forests and the wood within them.

Peasants resorted to both legal and violent means to reclaim their land rights. Lawsuits were frequently filed by peasants against landowners, and could remain active for decades; one such lawsuit in Sicily was first brought in 1829 and not settled until 1896. Peasants also stole wood from privatized forests or occupied them to reassert their land rights by force. Wood theft in particular was widespread in parts of Germany. Between the 1820s and 1840s, the number of those convicted of wood theft in the Bavarian Palatinate increased from 37,500 in 1821–22 to 185,000 in 1846–47, accounting for a third of the population. In France, opposition to the Forest Code led to the "War of the Maidens" from 1829 to 1832, in which peasants disguised in women's clothes violently resisted the Code's implementation in the department of Ariège. Unrest among the peasantry was also widespread in regions that retained feudalism, as in parts of Central Europe and most of Eastern Europe, though this had been commonplace for several centuries. Disputes and revolts were directed variously at oppressive lords, taxation and military conscription by the state, and religious authorities. The largest pre-revolutionary peasant uprising against feudal lords occurred in Austrian Galicia in 1846, which put an end to the Kraków Uprising by the Polish nobility.

Among urban workers

Rapid population growth was the most serious issue affecting urban workers, as migration into the cities due to poor conditions in the countryside led to a major oversaturation of labour markets and a decline in real wages among workers, while the cost of living continued to increase. Poor workers became more vulnerable to economic shocks, and the inability to afford foodstuffs other than potatoes and bread proved catastrophic amid a major food crisis affecting both between 1845 and 1847. Industrialization and the transition from the traditional economy to capitalist production also negatively affected urban workers, leading to a decline in their standard of living and social status. Most workers in 1848 were artisans who worked in the trades, while there were relatively few factory workers. Mechanization threatened some trades, such as the textile industry and metalworking, leading to a growing sense of insecurity among artisans, who felt their livelihoods and economic agency threatened.

The most prevalent disputes, however, were between employers and workers. Master craftsmen and journeymen came into increasing conflict as the guild system was weakened across Europe in the early nineteenth century. Under the new economy, master craftsmen began to accumulate wealth and were able to hire more workers, many of whom were unemployed due to the massive surplus of artisans. At the same time, masters sought to prevent the growing number of journeymen and apprentices from ever advancing to become masters to protect their economic interests from growing competition. Master craftsmen could also be threatened by transition, however, especially within the proto-industrial putting-out system, in which self-employed artisans were contracted by capitalist merchants to manufacture finished products. Conflict between merchants and artisans, especially in the textile industry, was primarily over payment disputes, as merchants frequently underpaid outworkers for their finished products to maximize profit. These disputes led to civil unrest, including uprisings by weavers in Lyon in 1831 and 1834, and in Silesia in 1844. Deep frustration among artisans continued into 1848, as they demanded the right of association to reclaim economic agency lost during the transition, both in novel forms such as early trade unions, cooperatives, and mutual benefit societies, as in France, or a return to the guild system, as in Germany.

Among the educated

The educated middle class was also affected by a decline in living standards. Across Western Europe, industrialization had increased the demand for professionals to support the new industries. Societal expectations also began to favor education and careerism as means to achieve upward mobility, especially after the French Revolution. As a result, more young men across Europe enrolled in universities, expecting, according to Lenore O'Boyle, that "the diploma might do what a title of nobility had once done" and they would achieve positions of leadership in society. In the more industrialized economies of Britain and the United States, more educated men were able to find work in private businesses, and consequently, there was little to no revolutionary agitation among them in 1848. In mainland Europe, however, where the pace of industrialization lagged, the only available professional careers were in the civil service, which could not open enough positions to meet demand.