ABSTRACT
The changes th a t have been outlined so far prim arily affected urban life. In order to understand the causes of the 1848 revolutions more fully, it is necessary to appreciate the great pressure th a t was placed on the agricultural system from the m iddle of the eighteenth century onwards. C rudely put, this was a m atter of num bers. In the middle of the eighteenth century the population o f Europe was 120 to 140 million; by 1800 this had risen to 187 million and by 1840 to 266 million. T his grow th was not entirely due to u rban developm ent. In G erm any some ru ral areas showed a m ore dram atic population growth than some urban areas. For example, in the substantially rural areas of Pom erania, in eastern Prussia, the population swelled from 683,000 in 1816 to 1,198,000 in 1849 - a 75 per cent increase. T he population of the industrial region of A rnsberg-D usseldorf on the other hand grew from 968,000 in 1816 to 1,198,000 in 1849 — only a 24 per cent increase. M ore significantly, perhaps, for arguing that the causes o f the 1848 revolutions were to be found in the deteriorating conditions of rural society, at least as far as tim ing was concerned, the Pom eranian population increased by 1.41 per cent per annum between 1840 and 1849, whereas the population of A rnsberg-D usseldorf increased by only 1.18 per cent per annum in the sam e period (48). Such a rate of grow th put great pressure on food supplies, and by the 1840s m any parts o f Europe were overpopulated, in the sense that food supply was insufficient and that there was growing underem ploym ent am ong m any sections o f the population.
