ABSTRACT
By 1848, social tensions in Western Europe, generated by the steadily increasing prosperity of the middle and upper classes and the steadily escalating privation of the working and peasant classes (Figure 9.1), was exacerbated by massive unemployment and rapidly rising food prices. The dry forest of social unrest needed only a spark to ignite into violence, especially in cities. There skilled craftsmen’s careers were doomed by industrialization and business and government employees felt disenfranchised by an antiquated power structure. The spark that kindled the fire of revolution occurred in Paris on 22 February 1848. A mass meeting, advertised as a “banquet” in order to circumvent laws against public assembly, was attacked by Louis-Philippe’s National Guard. Public outrage led to Louis-Philippe’s abdication on the 24th, and universal male suffrage (increasing the number of French voters from 250,000 to 8 million) was declared by the provisional government. Revolution then erupted in Austria, resulting in the resignation of the foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich, who actually ran the empire. Taking advantage of the Austrian government’s temporary weakness, Hungarian nationalists led by Lajos 219Kossuth successfully demanded greater autonomy for Hungary, but Czech nationalists led by František Palacký failed to win any new rights, and occupying Austrian forces were expelled from Venice. In the Italian territories, the King of Naples, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the Pope were all forced to approve constitutions. The Polish gentry, hampered by apathetic peasants who saw no point in replacing one ruling class with another, tried unsuccessfully to liberate themselves from Russian rule. And in Prussia, on 18 March, the brutal suppression of demonstrators in Berlin resulted in 200 deaths. The following day, Prussian Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm IV withdrew the army and announced a constitutional monarchy and electoral reform.
