ABSTRACT
The fact that relatively few people recognised 1830 as a turning-point in European history does not make the crisis of that year any less significant. Although Kieniewicz has reminded us that anniversaries alway make historians exaggerate the importance of the event they are studying, it remains true that 1830 was a dress rehearsal for the future, even if the critics preferred to sleep through it. The way it ended one revolutionary tradition and ushered in another was conveniently symbolised by the appearance of both the black flag of anarchy and the red flag of socialism in France in 1831-2. Had the events been as half-hearted as some critics claim, it is doubtful whether people would have protested as vigorously after 1830 as they did. In fact the outcomes of revolution in 1830 were in line with what many of its leaders wanted, and the process by which these ends were reached was certainly experienced as a real revolution, locally as well as centrally. Talk of the limited nature of the revolutions of 1830 thus rather misses the point. For 1830 was a serious revolution, and it was its basic nature, not its failure to meet more grandiose ends devised by outsiders, which gave it its historical significance.
