Building the Nation-State
Europe Erupts (1848-1850)
• 1846 = famine throughout Europe
• Since 1815, growing nationalist
and liberal sentiments
▫ Met with political repression
• French Revolution (1848)
▫ February = “campagne des banquets” go wrong;
sparks Parisian uprising that spreads to France
▫ Louis-Phillipe abdicates; politicians take over on
behalf of workers
▫ “June Days” = worker uprisings in Paris; military
government installed
▫ December 1848 = Louis Napoleon elected;
Revolution ends
Europe Erupts (1848-1850)
• Germany’s “March Revolution”
▫ Students, liberals, and workers rise up against the
nobility
▫ Revolutionaries demand national unity – one
Germany
▫ May 1848 = Frankfurt Assembly
Europe Erupts (1848-1850)
• Germany’s “March Revolution”
▫ Students, liberals, and workers rise up against the
nobility
▫ Revolutionaries demand national unity – one
Germany
▫ May 1848 = Frankfurt Assembly
▫ Wilhelm IV offered the crown of a unified Germany;
he flatly refuses
• The End of the Revolutions
▫ The reactionaries win throughout Europe
▫ Austria’s Habsburgs, Germany’s Junkers and noble
class, France’s Louis Napoleon
The Clash with “Eastern Europe”
• Dispute over the Holy Land (controlled by the
Ottoman Empire)
▫ France wanted Catholic recognition
▫ Russia wanted Orthodox recognition
• An Ottoman Empire in Decline . . .
▫ The “Eastern Question”
• Crimean War heats up . . .
▫ October 1853 = Ottoman Empire declares war on
Russia; Russia quickly defeats them
Crimean War (1853-1856)
• Four Great Powers demand that Russia leave
▫ Russia refuses
• March 1854 = Great Britain and France declare war
on Russia
▫ January 1855 = Kingdom of Sardinia declares war on
Russia
• The End of the Crimean War
▫ March 1855 = Nicholas I dies; new Tsar Alexander II
▫ Russian defeat at Sevastopol (September 1855)
▫ Austria continued to stay neutral
• Peace of Paris (1856)
Legacy of the Crimean War
• The “Human Cost”
▫ 750,000 soldiers dead; 80% of whom died of
disease
• Abolition of Russian serfdom (1861)
• Prussia was the big winner
• Big loser = the “Concert of Europe”
The Italian “Risorgimento”
• A volatile Italian peninsula . . .
The Italian “Risorgimento”
• A volatile Italian peninsula . . .
• Camillo Benso di Cavour’s Kingdom of Sardinia
▫ Prime Minister (1852-1859)
▫ Encouraged liberal reforms and industrialization
▫ 1858 = created an alliance with Napoleon III’s
France
• Austro-Sardinian War (1859)
▫ Treaty of Zurich (November 1859)
▫ Sardinia gained control over Lombardy
The Italian “Risorgimento”
• Cavour’s use of referendum voting
▫ Acquisitions of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena
• Giuseppe Garibaldi’s revolution in the Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies
▫ 1860 = returns to Italy to overthrow the King of
Naples/Sicily
▫ Garibaldi is hugely successful and begins marching
towards Rome
• 1861 = a unified Italy under King Victor Emmanuel
II (who had been King of Sardinia), ruled until 1878
▫ 1866 = acquired Venetia
▫ 1870 = acquired Rome
France’s Second Empire (1852-1870)
• Louis Napoleon, the President
▫ Elected in December 1848
• Louis Napoleon, Dictator
▫ December 1851 = Unconstitutionally dissolved the
National Assembly
• Napoleon III, Emperor
▫ December 1852 = re-established the French
Empire with popular referendum
France’s Second Empire (1852-1870)
• The benefits of technocratic rule . . .
▫ Massive industrial undertakings – railroads
▫ Expansion of international trade
▫ Re-building Paris – Georges Haussmann
• Foreign Policy success
▫ Crimean War
▫ Italian Unification
• Foreign Policy failure and the End of the Second
Republic
▫ Franco-Prussian War (1870/71)
▫ Third Republic established (September 1870)
German Unification
• 1850 = German Confederation restored
• Prussia has two advantages over Austria:
▫ largest power in the Zollverein
▫ Otto von Bismarck and Realpolitik
• Austro-Prussian War (1866)
▫ 1864 = Prussia and Austria invade Schleswig &
Holstein (German-speaking Danish territories)
▫ June 1866 = Prussia declares war on Austria and
defeats them in 7 weeks
▫ Austria is formally excluded from the German
Confederation
▫ 1867 = Austria becomes Austria-Hungary
German Unification
• Concerns about Prussian dominance
• Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)
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Again, Bismarck provokes his enemy
July 1870 = France declared war on Prussia
Germans outnumbered and outmatched the French
January 1871 = France is defeated; Alsace-Lorraine
ceded to the German Confederation
• January 1871 = Proclamation of the German
Empire; Wilhelm I made Emperor and Bismarck
made Chancellor (1871-1890)
▫ No liberal constitution; Reichstag is not sovereign –
emperor is sovereign