ABSTRACT
The Revolutions of 1848 and 1849 did not have the impact on society and historiography that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era had. Nevertheless, they were part of fundamental changes in the political, social, and intellectual climate in the Western world. Like the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848 did not achieve what its participants intended; in many ways, they were dismal failures. They contributed to the survival of the old structures but also gave way to important reforms. The revolutions in the German and Italian states and in parts of the Habsburg Empire had a democratic undercurrent that was linked to national aspirations, in Germany and Italy for national unification and in Hungary for independence, while in France, where nationalism was not a pressing issue, socialist stirrings mingled with democratic ones. And they failed everywhere. By 1849, the dreams of the German and Italian revolutionaries of achieving unification by democratic means were shattered; in Hungary, the Russian army called in by the Habsburg government put a bloody end to Hungarian autonomy; in France, the workers’ uprising of June 1848 was crushed by the National Guard, and class conflicts led to the plebiscitarian dictatorship of Napoleon III. Events were less spectacular in Great Britain where attempts by the Chartists to obtain the vote for the working classes were rebuffed.
