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The Old Order Under Attack

Restoration France

• Within France legitimacy was to be restored by bringing back the Bourbon

monarchy – Louis XVII (Louis XVI’s brother was placed on the throne). 

• French political and social development was shaped by economic change and the

class conflict that this created.

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The Constitutional Charter of 1814

• Created a constitutional monarchy.

• It guaranteed individual rights (the gains of the revolutionary period such as equality

before the law)

• It established a parliamentary system:

- Chamber of Deputies made up of substantial property owners.

- Restricted franchise – 1 in 100 males.

- Hereditary Chamber of Peers.

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Constitutional Problems

• It tried to create a parliamentary system whilst retaining the ideas of an

absolute/hereditary monarchy.

• There was no way of ensuring the responsibility of ministers to the

legislature.

• To survive the govt had to be responsive to business and other interests but

the divisions in French political society did not allow much room for

compromise.

• Political conflicts up to the 1830 Revolution were shaped by long term social

and political developments.

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Political conflicts up to the 1830 Revolution

were shaped by long term social and political

developments.

• Royalists who wanted to restore full powers of monarchy.

• An urban middle class – former supporters of Napoleon and

Republicans.

• Conservatives supporting a constitutional monarchy.

• The development of a working/artisan class and a profession middle

class fundamentally shaped future political developments.

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The 1830 Revolutions:

• 1830 protests in Italy, Germany, Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and

Poland.

• They essentially a middle class protest against conservative political regimes.

• Successful liberal regimes were established in Switzerland, Belgium. Spain and

France.

• Europe more clearly divided between countries with some form of liberal

constitution and countries that retained autocratic systems of govt.

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The 1830 French Revolution

Highlights a pattern which will see again.

• liberal opposition grew during the 1820s in response to repressive measures.

• Number of opposition Deputies in the Assembly grew. In 1830 demanded ministers be

responsible the Chamber.

• King suspends constitution and the Chamber.

• July 1830 workers and students revolt – King forced to abdicate when cannot really on

the army.

• New regime of Louis-Philippe lasted until 1848.

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The July Monarchy

Based on three things:

• His qualities as the ‘Citizen King’. 

• Support of the landed bourgeoisie and wealthy business/commercial interests.

• A revised Charter of Liberties – key elements:

- king lost power to veto legislation absolutely;

- abolition of censorship;

- franchise extension (170,000);

- Chamber of Peers became an upper house of life members.

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The Regimes Problems

• Divided support.

• Hostility of extremists.

•   Social Unrest:

- Industrial unrest became a political issue for the first time.

- 1846 over 1 million employed in large scale industry – growth in

towns produced a decline in living standards for workers.

- Employment irregular and this produced unrest.

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Chartism and the Political Social Order in Britain

• More clearly recognisable working class consciousness developed in Britain.

• Rapid industrialisation and the terrible social conditions of many of the expanding cities

gave the movements more force.

• The Chartist movement campaigned in the 1830s and 40s for an extension of the vote to

the working classes – Universal Manhood Suffrage.

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Kennington Common Meeting 1848

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Metternich and the Austrian Empire 1815-48

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Metternich and the Austrian Empire 1815-48

•An accumulation of territory collected by the Habsburg family since the 15th C.

• Threats to the dynasty:

- Chiefly nationalist pressures to decentralise the empire – among the 11

nationalities in the empire.

- Opposition also came from old traditional aristocratic groups in the empire( i.e. the Magyars in Hungary).

• From 1848 this opposition to central control from Vienna became more popular in

nature, particularly as towns grew in size.

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Clement von Metternich:

• Most important conservative statesman in Europe – served as Minister of

Foreign Affairs (1809-48) and Austrian Chancellor (1821-48) .

• He sought to maintain the social order within the empire and between states

by supporting other monarchies.

• Keeping social order depended on retaining the loyalty of the rural masses.

• Economic change undermined his efforts to oppose revolution and reform – 

in particular the growth of an urban middle class

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Reform and Repression

The Carlsbad Decrees (1819):• Meeting of the states of the German Confederation introduced the decrees.

• They increased press censorship, banned nationalist societies and increased

control over the universities .

The Six Articles (1832):• Forbad public meetings and renewed edicts against universities.

• As the 1848 revolutions demonstrated a lot of his efforts to hold back change

were unsuccessful

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Summary

•Economic development led to class change.

• These changes led to new political pressures on European

governments and the old order.

• In some countries liberalism made progress – in other’s

despotic regimes maintained.

• Europe was divided politically by these changes.

• Things came to a head dramatically in 1848.