Europe 1815-1850

[pic 1]Europe: 1815-1850

Revolution Again

Russia: The Decembrist Revolt and Nicholas I

Alexander I died in 1825.  His was a divided personality: half of him wanted to be an Enlightened ruler, while another half wanted to continue the traditional autocratic rule of the Tsars.   Russian troops had entered Paris and many officers had come under the influence of Revolutionary and Napoleon ideals. These officers returned with ideas about constitutional monarchy, a parliament and also the abolition of serfdom.  

Alexander I’s death provided an opportunity because there was a contested succession.   Constantine, Alexander’s brother, was the legal heir.  But, Constantine, who was Governor of Poland,  had married outside the Imperial Family and lost his place in the succession.   Nicholas was then the presumptive heir. But, while there was a pause in the succession, the reform-minded officers attempted to stage a coup.  Because it was staged in December, the uprising was known as the Decembrist Revolt, with calls for ‘Constantine and the Constitution!’  Many peasants had no idea what this was about, thinking that ‘Constitution’ was Constantine’s wife’.  

Nicholas rallied troops behind him and soon crushed the revolt.  He was to reign from 1825 until the Crimean War in 1855.  

[pic 2]Nicholas I enforced a stringent form of absolutism in Russia.  The Third Department was another name for the Secret Police had wide powers to arrest and imprison political and other offenders.  It was the forerunner of later organizations such as the Soviet KGB.   Political opinion was stifled, serfdom remained, and little social or economic progress was made in Russia.

Abroad, Nicholas I wanted to see the end of the Ottoman Empire and extend Russian influence into the Balkans.

He was against any form of revolutionary uprising, and he sent Russian troops into Hungary to crush the revolt against the Habsburg monarchy.

Nicholas I was known as the ‘Gendarme of Europe’ because  he was so willing to use military forece against revolution.

[pic 3]Germany:

Liberal and Nationalist ideas had taken root in many of the German states.  Prussia was seen as the second leading nation in Europe, but the monarchy in Berlin was very conservative and quite willing to allow Austria to be the dominant power in Germany.

The movement for a Liberal, nationalist and a united Germany, came from the intellectual classes such [pic 4]as the professors and especially the students.  One group of students was called the Burschenshaften, with their own uniforms and colors, gold, red and black (which form today’s German flag).  An uprising was staged  at the castle of Wartburg in 1817 on the occasion of the  300th anniversary of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.   Metternich had the German Confederation Diet (or parliament) impose the Karlsbad Decrees closing down these student societies and imposing censorship and stricter controls over the universities.