In Our Time - 1848: Year of Revolution

Episode Date: January 19, 2012

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss 1848, the year that saw Europe engulfed in revolution. Across the continent, from Paris to Palermo, liberals rose against conservative governments. The first stirrings of rebellion came in January, in Sicily; in February the French monarchy fell; and within a few months Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy had all been overtaken by revolutionary fervour. Only a few countries, notably Britain and Russia, were spared.The rebels were fighting for nationalism, social justice and civil rights, and were prepared to fight in the streets down to the last man. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives; but little of lasting value was achieved, and by the end of the year the liberal revolutions had been soundly beaten.With: Tim BlanningEmeritus Professor of History at the University of CambridgeLucy RiallProfessor of History at Birkbeck, University of LondonMike RapportSenior Lecturer in History at the University of Stirling.Producer: Thomas Morris.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, on February the 26th, 1848, page five of the times contained dramatic news from the continent. The newspaper's editorial staff informed its readers of a bulletin

received by Electric Telegraph from Folkston. Quote, there's been a comprehensive. complete revolution in France, it said, which is terminated in the abdication of the king of the French. The Palais Royale was attacked at 12 o'clock by the people, and taken by them at half-past won, after a sanguinary contest, end of quote. The French opposition declared a republic, and it wasn't long before this revolutionary zeal spread, within weeks' uprisings had begun in Germany, and soon a wave of revolutions swept across Europe, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, and Ireland were all affected.

But almost all of these rebellions failed. leaving many countries with regimes even more oppressive than those they'd briefly shaken off. With me to discuss the revolutions of 1848 are Tim Blanning, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, Lucy Ryle, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and Mike Report, senior lecturer in history at the University of Stirling. Tim Blanning, let's start by going back a few decades

to when the map of Europe was substantially redrawn in 1815, after the Napoleonic War. What the peacemakers tried to do at Vienna in 1814-15, they were at it for more than a year, was to create a new order for Europe after virtually quarter of a century of incessant fighting. It's a very, very complex settlement that they imposed on Europe,

and imposed as the word, incidentally, but I think we can pull out maybe four things, four big things. One was to turn France into a stable monarchy, but a weak monarchy. and in that they more or less succeeded. It wasn't very stable because there's a change of dynasty in 1830, but France didn't go to war again until 1854,

which was amazing given the record of French aggression over the previous two centuries. Secondly, they turned Italy into a dominion of Austria, and there we can give them a big tick. That certainly succeeded, at least until 1859, with a brief blip, as we shall discover, in a moment, in 1848. Thirdly, they handed over Poland to Russia, and that can be given a great big tick because that continues until 1917 in effect.

And then finally, and most importantly, they did not restore the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, the wonderful fragmentation of Germany. Instead, they created a German confederation of 39 states, again, under the dominion of Austria. So it looks as though Austria has come out by far and away the winner of this settlement, although with the advance of hindsight we can see that they really set up a unification of Germany under Prussia. But that's a long time in the future. these ticks included jamming together countries and areas which didn't like to be jammed together so there were ticks covering cracks, weren't they?

Oh, absolutely, and the cracks were wide in 1815 and the fissios got wider as the decades passed. And I think we can say with the advantage of hindsight and historians are good at that, that what the peacemakers had failed to do was to take any account of the two great, powerful ideologies of the period, liberalism and nationalism. There are always many reasons and historians like to give them in threes but still there are many reasons for, ascribed to the causes of these revolutions

in 1848. But can you tell us a bit, Tim, planning, about their profound social changes revving up to 48? Yes, I haven't got a triad. I'm sorry, Melvin, I've only got two for you, but they're big ones. The first one is a terrific

demographic revolution. The population of Europe increases very rapidly during the 19th century, during the first half of the 19th century, especially. If I can just give you one figure to indicate what's happening here, the population of Berlin goes from 175,000 in 1800 to 420,000 by 1848. It's a colossal increase taking place before everyone's eyes. It's a perceived increase.

And what's happening there is that as a result of this colossal expansion of population, most especially in the big cities, we've got a downward pressure on wages, but an upward pressure on prices. So there's a long-term deterioration in the standard of living for a large number of people living in towns. And the other great change which takes place is a massive expansion in the public sphere as a result of an increase in literacy.

The public sphere means a number of public who can engage in political discourse. Exactly. There are more educated people, many, many more educated people who can read about public affairs, want to read about public affairs, want to discuss public affairs, want to become involved in public affairs, but they can't in most of continental Europe, because there is repressive censorship and a denial of freedom of association or assembly or any of the other civil liberties. Well, we're off to a great start.

Lucy Ryle, Britain had embraced some sort of, well, no, embrace political reform with a Reform Act in 1832. But what was the political situation? Tim has told us, giving us good background on the story. What was the political situation? in Europe? Well, it is in fact exactly as Tim has described it. I mean, these regimes that are restored in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars

are what they call absolutist regimes. In other words, they rest on the absolute power of rulers. There are generally not no constitutions, although there are some parliaments, they have very little power. They're based on press censorship and quite heavy-handed policing.

So that's fine as far as it goes. But actually, by the 1830, and definitely by the 1840s, this quite repressive absolutist system is beginning to falter. And it's faltering, actually, again, for the reason that Tim has just described, in part because of the growth of public opinion and a kind of liberal public opinion, which is bitterly opposed to this system of government and is demanding liberal reforms and freedom of the press.

And these are then also forming into opposition groups, either moderate liberal groups or much more radical revolutionary groups. So you've got a very unstable political situation in which these governments are not actually managing to kind of fulfil their obligations or guarantee order in this period. Are you talking about something that is European-wide at this stage? Well, obviously, it is a huge generalisation, but these kinds of factors you can see

in almost all of the continental European state, certainly West Western Europe and Central Europe. Germany in some southern German states, the situation is less unstable, but certainly in parts of the Austrian or Habsburg Empire, and most definitely in Italy, the regimes by the 1840s are looking really quite unstable. Can you give the list of some idea of what a repressive absolutist regime was doing and how it was being repressive and absolutist? Well, in part it was based, again, it depends from state to state.

Well, let's take France to start with. Well, in part, it's about actually cracking down on any sign of revolutionary or oppositional political activity. So that, in fact, almost all opposition political activity is taking place in kind of cultural areas, such as in clubs and so on. There is no freedom of the press. So as soon as everything has to go through the censor. And votes? And there's obviously no voting. I mean, there's very, very, very narrow suffrage.

It's about less than 2% of the population. So really there is no public sphere in terms of the way we think about it. And this absolutism is enforced very rigorously? Yeah, by the police and are necessary by the army. What were the economic circumstances of the major European powers in, let's just go to the 1840s now in a run-up to 1848. Let's start at the beginning of the 1840s. What's going on?

Well, the 1840s is a period actually of really severe economic crisis. You know, we might want to call it a kind of perfect storm in economic terms. because you have a series of very, very bad harvest, starting with potato harvest and continuing with a grain harvest. Through the early 40s? Yeah, from about 1845 until about 1847, there are two years of very bad harvests. And this leads to price rises fundamentally, which in turn leads to a downturn in the trade cycle and unemployment, because essentially people can't afford to buy manufacturing goods anymore. and that in turn actually leads to a wave of business bankruptcies,

which in turn leads to a credit crisis with a number of banks failing across Europe. All of this also must be seen in terms of a much broader picture, which is actually a kind of long and very painful transition from fuel society to capitalist society, if we want to call it that, or certainly a kind of industrialisation and the commercialisation of agriculture. Was the industrial revolution which was very advanced in this country

but gaining a grip in continental Europe was that a factor too? Did the cities become different places because of this? Well the cities are growing very rapidly again as Tim said earlier it's partly to do with population growth and partly to do with massive migration into the town so the cities have become much more overcrowded

another factor And the powers of B weren't ready for that. They weren't ready for the sewers, the education, the transfer. They had no way of dealing with them. An example, a very good example of that, a cholera epidemics in the 1830s, which are very, very frightening, kill an enormous number of people,

and the governments really have no means of dealing with it, because they don't even understand what it is. Mike Rapport, can you, as we come to the final lap, of reasons for these things happening, and such a scale in 1848, Is there anything that you would like to add to the reasons for? One is the role of historical memory. Metternich famously said that when France sneezes Europe catches a cold

and the reason behind that is the memory of the French Revolution of 1789. And you add to that a cultural movement to romanticism where people remember the French Revolution in quite idealistic terms sometimes. And revolution for many people is a kind of panacea, that it can somehow transform society and make things better. And part of that is you get the rise of the professional revolutionary. Now, these people don't create the conditions of the revolution, people like Garibaldi, Matzini and the Italians, people like Louis Auguste Blonky and France.

But what they do do is they're ready, they're on hand to take advantage of the situation. And the second point, I think, is that the 1848 revolutions don't come out with the blue. in 1746, 1747, and indeed early 1848 before the February Revolution in Paris, you have movements which are already testing the limits of the old order. There is a peasant uprising in Galicia, in what is now the Ukraine, in 1846. You get Italians celebrating the election of a Pope who they thought was liberal, Pius I. and you get demonstrations in Germany against the economic crisis, the hunger marches. So there are people testing the limits of the old order, testing the capacity of the old order to resist.

And have we stressed enough the importance of the new communications, or we began the program by saying of the electric telegraph from Folkson gave the excited news to the Times? Yes, the main mode of communication, the most modern, I suppose, the most widespread was steam power. To give one example, the news of the revolution in Vienna when it took place, arrived in Venice by the Lloyd's steamer from Triesta across the Adriatic. Steam power is very important because it speeds up the news of the revolution in Paris, the revolutions in Vienna revolutions in Berlin. And that's what sets the European heather alight is the rapidity with which the news of revolution spread.

Finally, before we move into the revolutions themselves, Can we just, again, can we define as closely as possible who these revolutionaries were? They, in many ways, on a European plane, represent a cross-section of European society. They are... Including Irish and cigarettes. Yes, in some parts of Europe, absolutely aristocracy. Northern Italy, I think, you get the nobility, are very disenchanted with Austrian rule, primarily because power isn't being shared.

But by and large, you're talking about people who are middle class, often. The leadership is often middle class. They're journalists in particular, who are very much engaged with the civil society we've been talking about, disenchanted with the limits of the old order, particularly the political limits. It is the young. Students in particular play an important role, especially in Vienna, in Paris as well, and I believe in Berlin too. But also, above all, the people who do the hardcore fighting on the barricades in the cities are the workers and the artisans, who are in many ways responding to liberal appeals for a system. in some respects, but also who are being driven by economic distress and economic despair. Thank you. Tim Blunning, there's already been a few disturbances before he got to Paris, but Paris was the significant revolution in 1848. And as we heard at the beginning of the program,

it seemed to happen in an hour and a half, and it was all over. Can you develop that? I can't a bit, I think. It takes about three days. It's amazing that what appeared to be a really very stable monarchy just goes down in flames and into a three days. days in February 1848. And then that just lights up the continent. There had been previous problems in Naples and Sicily, but that wasn't going to do very much. But France and memories of the French Revolution are loom very large in men's minds. A lot of people are still alive who either had first-hand experience of the French Revolution or knew about it from what their parents had told them. So it's a very live issue. Well, now, in France in late 1847, early 1848,

but the big issue was the franchise. As Lucy said earlier, it is very limited. It's more limited in France in 1848 than it had been in England before 1832, before the Great Reform Act. We're talking about, actually, my figure, I think it's actually rather less than 1% of the French population being entitled to vote. So there's a lot of agitation in favour of an expansion of the franchise. Not for the least reason, they're encouraged by what had happened in England in the early 1830s.

Well, now, there's a ban on political demos. So instead to get around that, they organise, the opposition organises banquets. That's great, isn't it? Yes, why not? I love that bit. This is Paris, you know? They like to eat and dine. And when they eat and dine, they also make political speeches and lots of political semiotics and so on.

So it's a not very covert political demonstration. Anyway, a banquet due to be held on 21st of February is banned. There's a demonstration on the streets. out of hand. There's fighting over the next couple of days. The National Guard is mobilized. The National Guard proves to be mutinous. And this is absolutely crucial moment in Paris, in February, and by extension, everywhere else in Europe. When the armed forces, the coercive forces of the state start to crumble, that's when a demonstration turns into an incipient revolution. And in France, there's regime change because the Army, the National Guard and the regular army falls apart

in King Louis-Philippe's hands. He realises that the time has come and his will collapses, and he cuts and runs. He didn't want to end up, as his father had, on the guillotine. And he makes for England? Where else does he wear? How do he go? Potters out his life in London, I suppose.

He went to, they, Claremont was made available for him, wasn't it? I think he ends his days in Claremont, a stately home in southern England. Worst places to end up. So that happened in France. That sings a big signal around Europe because France, Paris being Paris and the French Revolution. And as you've described, Louis-Philippe, actually fleeing the field, Aschegov turning. Luccharile, it's a dominoe effect, isn't it?

It's very good. Only a few weeks later, the revolution sentiment went to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, another massive place. What were the consequences in Vienna? And how did it reach there? Do we see, is there an absolutely direct connection? Well, there must be. the direct connection? The direct connection is essentially news. News travels much faster by the middle of the 19th century, so the news arrives of what's happened in Paris, and when, you know,

Paris sneezes the rest of Europe catches the cold, so effectively the Habsburg Empire catches the cold. But actually very quickly, I mean, if it takes three days in Paris, it really takes one day in Vienna, on the 13th of March, partly as a result of incendiary speeches of the previous week in the Hungarian diet or parliament. There is, in fact, there are street demonstrations in Vienna. Starting with students, many of whom are Czech, who are just completely fed up with the regime, they go down into the streets and start demonstrating.

They are then joined by actually a lot of middle class professionals, lawyers and shopkeepers and so on. And when the army tries to disperse these, demonstrators, they then take to the barricades and are joined by workers, so the whole thing kind of really spirals out of control, and they then try and march on the Imperial Palace, demanding the resignation of Metternich, the Chancellor of Austria, who by the end of the day has given up, has been forced to give up, has been basically dismissed, and flees Vienna with his wife, and he too ends up in England, and I'm not sure what stately home they give him. I don't quite know

what happens to Metternich after 1848. But can we pause on Metternich for a moment? Because as I understand it, he was the great architect of the Congress of Vienna and he was regarded as the great solidifying, central, intellectual, unifying force in Europe. And he goes, Tim, do you want to go back in Lerick? He's the personification of the system which is imposed after 1815. In many ways, it's most unfair. Mezzanik was a conservative rather than a reactionary, much of what was done in his name in Europe and more more specifically in the Habsburg Empire, did not win his approval,

but nevertheless, he's the personification of reaction, and he's old by 1848. He's been in charge in 1809, and so it's a combination of someone who is old, moribund, but also repressive, is a very,

it makes people very angry. Lucy, so when he fled, what happened? Well, then there really is a domino effect, because precisely because he is, a symbol of the old order, of the Ancien regime, the restored regime. At that point, you know, all bets are off, basically. The conservative order has been defeated. And the revolution spreads to Budapest, to Northern Italy, particularly to Venice and Milan.

It spreads to Zagreb in the south. It spreads to Krakow in the north. So you actually then have revolution across the Habsburg Empire and eventually spreading it into the German states as well. So it's really the end, the fall of Metanyahu. to be the end of the old regimes. Let's take to another big beast, Germany, Mike Rapport. What happened there? Well, two things. First of all,

the news of the revolution in Paris. And we're talking just to keep the listeners. We're talking about a matter of weeks here. Two weeks later this happened, two weeks later that happened. It's going, bud-bud-bud. Right, right. That's right. From late February to mid-March, I mean, it is a matter of a couple of weeks.

Two things happen. First of all, the news of the revolution in Paris brings German radicals and liberals out onto the streets demanding constitutional change, demanding constitutions, civil rights in Western Germany. The last state to topple is Prussia, with its capital in Berlin. It is the most powerful state in Germany alongside Austria, so it's very, very important for that reason.

And the revolutions in Germany act at two levels. The national level, because German liberals, the revolutionaries want German unification, but also at the state level, and each state has its own mini-revolution, if you like. But the most important one in German terms is actually the revolution which occurs in Berlin, and it's very, very violent, very bloody. It is one day of very intense violence, but 900 people are killed, 800 of them on the insurgent side.

And the end of the day? The king promises vaguely a constitution for Prussia, and he also promises vaguely that he will support the movement for German unification, and he will use Prussian power to help achieve that. Do the revolutioners at the end of that day think they've won? Yes, there is what one French historian once called the lyrical illusion, the sense that we've achieved this and we've achieved this through social unity, middle-class people, working-class people on the barricades together,

and that somehow this is the dawn of a new era. There is a suspicion, however, amongst liberals that the victory isn't entirely complete, that the monarchies who have been cowed are not actually broken or defeated entirely. Let's stay in this moment, Tim Lerning. The revolution after revolution after revolution in all these great cities that Lucy's talked about, you've talked about, why did it spread? Did they feel that they got there, that it had been

ready to topple and they'd just pushed it with their forefinger and down it had gone? Was this exhilaration throughout Europe? Exileration is a very good way of describing it. Yes, it's a combination of exhilaration on the part of the insurgents and a collective collapse of nerve on the part of the regimes. For the past generation or more, Metternich had been telling anyone who would listen that Red Revolution was just around the corner unless they repressed every sign of political dissent.

And so when there is this very rapid collapse of the regime in Paris and Louis Philippe did abdicate, did flee, a republic was established, all the other rulers in Europe thought, oh my God, it's going to happen to us unless we make concessions. So right across central, eastern, southern Europe, concessions are made. made. Liberal regimes are introduced. Civil liberties are granted. And so there's a general feeling across Europe in the spring time of the peoples that the spring had arrived both literally and metaphorically and the old order had collapsed. They were wrong.

It is extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, just to contemplate it, these 20 or 30 cities and just collapsing like that at that particular time. Lucy, there had been a very early revolution, even before Paris, in Sicily, and then it had spread up, as it were, north anyway, into Italy. And the Italian revolution got underway. We're going from country to country. This is a historic history as a travel tour as well as everything else.

But Italy was very substantially involved. Yeah, actually, as so often, Italy is a harbinger what is to come. And in fact, in a way, the revolution started in 1846 in Italy, with the election of this Pope, Pius I.S. the 9th, who everyone has such liberal expectations in. But the real moment is first... What their expectations are realised? Initially at the very beginning, but by the spring of 1848, he's already disappointed everybody. But they hope he's a liberal pope, and also he's an Italian pope, or he's going to help unify Italy.

And these expectations are one reason why. You start getting disturbances in Milan because there is a tobacco strike in protest at the tax on tobacco and great resentment against Austrian soldiers who wander around Milan smoking in people's faces. But more importantly are the events in early January in Palermo when there is a kind of an urban riot which rapidly spreads into the countryside and the government and troops completely lose control of what's going on in Sicily. retreat to the mainland, but the riots also spread to the mainland, and in Naples, and in early middle January, there is a constitution granted by the king. This then spreads also further north, and constitutions are granted in the papal states by the Pope,

in Tuscany, by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in most importantly of all, in Piedmont Savoy by the king of Piedmont. Important because they had a standing army, didn't they? Important because they had to stand. I'm important because this is the one statute, the one constitution in Italy that remains after the end of the 1848 revolutions, and important because Piamont is about to thereafter have an incredibly important role in the future of Italy. So it's almost like some sort of forest fire, isn't it, really? Let's just continue for a little while. Mike Rapport, over to you for Hungary. Yes, Hungary is an interesting case because it's one which actually, at least at the initial outbreak, isn't that violent. The news of Metternich's dismissal, or rather the resignation arrives in Budapest the day afterwards.

So we were talking about the 14th of March. Now Hungary is already infirmant. There are two reasons for this. First of all, there is a radical movement which has met clandestinely in Budapest, demanding or drawing up a program for dramatic political reform, a constitution, elections, civil liberties. But there's also already a parliament meeting, the Hungarian diet. And it is in there that the radical leader,

Laosch-Cochut had pronounced, given a great speech, which pretty much warns the Habsburg monarchy, that it has to reform, otherwise it will fall apart. And it is that speech which is translated into German, sent it to Vienna, which in many ways galvanizes the Vienna crowd in the revolution there. So there's a kind of a cycle. But when the news of Metternich's fall comes,

it is the radical movement in Budapest, which assembles a large crowd, about 20,000 people by some accounts, marches on the castle in Buddha and demands constitutional change. And there is, by this stage, a total loss of confidence by the authorities. They've heard about Metternix resignation. And apparently some accounts say that these people, on both sides are trembling, because they're not sure what's going to happen. And they grant hungry constitutional change.

So when you say they want these changes, can you just spell out, say, the three or four major changes that the revolution, are asking for, demanding. Greater autonomy within the Habsburg Empire. They don't want full independence. Oh, right across Europe. Constitutions. So they want not necessarily democracy,

but they want legislative government, they want representative government. They want civil liberties, especially freedom of the press. And an interesting one is that most of these movements want a citizen's militia, because they don't trust the regular army. They believe it's in the hands of the conservative governments.

Now, Jim Lany we could go on to Denmark, Poland and Ireland and so on. And it did. What are the newspapers, what's opinion saying about this around the place? Is there a huge excitement and the world is changing or the end of the old world, the beginning of the new? Yes, well, there was great excitement. But one needs to remember. And this is really signalling a pretty quite important qualification to what we've been talking about so far. We've really talked as if it were the case that everyone in Europe wanted revolutionary change.

But it's not like that at all. The public sphere is a neutral vessel in which all shades of opinion could sail and did sail. And so in 1848 it's not only liberals and nationalists and radicals who come to the fore, but is also clericals, Catholic clericals and conservatives and people that we would regard as seriously reactionary. So there's a real maelstrom of opinion right across the whole spectrum from right to left. So to answer your question, in the newspapers, which flood past now the censorship has been removed, that the flood into the public sphere, every conceivable kind of opinion is being ventilated right from the extreme left. This is the time when Karl Marx is very busy in Cologne, right to the extreme right,

where we've got reactionary Prussian Juncker's with setting up their own newspapers to put their views across. It's by no means unanimous. There's no consensus in 1848. That's really what I'm getting at. Lutera, these are the countries that I've just, we haven't time to go to all of them. Was anything new, did anything new happen in any of them

that would add to the conversation? Well, I mean, I think probably the interest, the most interest in the country in some respects, it's actually Britain. I'm coming to that later. I'm talking about those which did have revolutions. which did have revolutions. I'm Poland, Denmark, Ireland.

Attempted. Denmark is important, and especially for the German context, because the Danish monarchy actually signs away absolutism even before the revolution takes place. Late February, they say, well, we'll give up. We'll have a constitutional monarchy. The thing is that that stirs up Danish nationalism. It encourages the Danish nationalists

who enter a dispute with the German liberals in March and April 1814. over the Schlejvig-Holstein duchies, which those borderland duchies between Denmark and Germany. And that erupts into conflict in April, 1848. And it is one of the things in the end which saps the liberal revolution in Germany. Now, Lucy has mentioned, and we said at the beginning of the Roman, and there were exceptions to this, and two of the exceptions were Britain and Russia.

Why was that? You do Britain, and then Lucy can do Russia. Well, Britain, because, as Tim said earlier, there had already been constitutional concessions made, the 1832 reform act. But it didn't be surprising that I didn't say, let's join in and have more concessions. Yes, well, actually, there was a Chartist movement which demanded universal male suffrage amongst other things. And they did organize a monster demonstration, I think they called it at the time, to march on Parliament and present a petition for parliamentary reform. But it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. and it's partly because the Charterist movement itself had contradictions within it.

They talked about peaceful protests, but some radicals, hotheads talked about revolutionary methods. And in the end, the authorities were pretty robust in facing it down. Lucy was to say something with Timvers. Just to add, I think the British system survives because it showed it could reform itself from within. So in the 1840s, the Anti-Corps League had secured the repeal of the, the corn laws. It was, and Queen, it's also very important, the Queen Victoria was a young,

attractive, almost, one might say, charismatic monarch. She had lots of legitimacy in her tank, as compared with most of the Cretins who ruled the continental monarchy. So England is, Great Britain, United Kingdom one, should say, is a special case in that. But there was a

revolution in Ireland, which is then part of Britain, as it were. Not in 1848. Yes, there is. There is. There is an attempted revolution An attempted revolution. People don't have a confederates of all things, they rise up, but it's put down very, very quickly. So it doesn't qualify as a real revolution, Tim. It's a squib revolution, but we nearly there.

What about Russia? Well, I wanted to just say that I actually think in some ways the revolution in Ireland is actually quite important. I mean, it, and a lot of these revolutions are squibs, but actually there is huge opposition in Ireland to British rules. So I think there is a kind of way in which we can't completely write that off. There's always a way that we like to say that Britain is different. But actually, there are similar. problems developing in Ireland. In Russia, actually it's in a way more simple still. It's because there is, on the one hand, very effective repression. If we think about what we said already,

the governments in early 1848 losing control of the situation. In Russia, they simply don't lose control of the situation because they crack down very, very quickly. And the army is really very effective in doing that. Also, because I think probably there is simply, not quite so much a kind of same development of political opposition and of particularly intellectual opposition to the regime. So on the one hand, the government is stronger, on the other hand, the political opposition is weaker, so you just don't have the same possibilities, basically.

We have a situation in Italy, which becomes, as it were, in a way the most interesting. We have Matsini and Manin and most of all Garibaldi. Can we just refer to it to Italy for a moment? Do you and then to Tim? Well, I think what happens in Italy is, in fact, incredibly interesting, partly because it shows that the revolutions don't end in 1848, but there's a second wave in 1849. Also, I may interject for one second,

it also shows that influences are coming from South America. Garibaldi himself came from South America, which had successful revolutions against Spain in the 1820s, and they brought those ideas across to Europe. It's that way traffic, isn't it? It's that way traffic, in fact, in particular what Garibaldi brings over from, South America is this idea of volunteer armies.

And these volunteer armies play actually a very large role in the greatest kind of revolution in Rome in the end, which is in 1849, which is the resistance of the Roman Republic to French invasion. So I think that in a way 1849 is very interesting because there is this second more radical wave of revolutions. And this actually, there's also, there's a overthrow of the Grand Duke in

Tuscany and the resistance of Venice to Austrian invasion. Now we've got to talk about failure because they failed most of them. Tim Lanny. Was there any, very, very quickly, we're talking about a few months and they're finished. And it's worse than it was before. Well, can you talk about that? Why did they fail and why was the pattern so similar in their failure? Sure.

Perfect bridge from what Lucy's just been saying about Italy. Because it's in Italy that the counter-revolutions cause its first major success. General Field Marshal Radetsky, who was in charge of Austrian troops, does something very sensible in March, April 1848. He withdraws his troops from their land. He hands it over to the insurgents. He pulls his troops back to the fortresses for the quadrilateral. He then purges his units of any soldiers who are thought to be unreliable.

And when he's pared it down to a mainly German or Hungarian or Croatian-speaking army, he sallies forth and then proceeds to crush the Italian insurgents. supported by the Pierre Montes army at Kostatsa on the 22nd of July 1848. And that, we can say with the advantage of hindsight once more, is the beginning of the end for the revolutions of 1848, because it showed that when the insertions, however enthusiastic and revolutionary there might have been, when they ran into the disciplined firepower of an old regime army, they were defeated. They fell apart. And that happens again and again and again.

Can you tell us, Mike Report, how it happened again and again and again? Well, the revolution is actually, in a sense, self-destruct from within as well. There is a political polarization between liberals who are quite happy with the concessions rung out of governments in February, March 1848, primarily political reform. But there are radicals who want to push the revolutions further, and they want to push the revolution towards social reform, wholesale social reform. And this, in a sense, polarizes the revolution from within between left and right or moderates and radicals. And that provides the opportunity for conservatives to strike back because the liberals in the end are confronted with this choice. Do you stick to your revolutionary principles,

but therefore give the radicals the opportunity to push the revolution to further ends, to radicalize the revolution further? Which you would find unacceptable. If you're a liberal, that is a nightmare. Because it may entail the redistribution of property. It may entail what people thought of as anarchy, chaos, bloodshed. Like increased male suffrage? Yes, precisely, but also social reform, socialism, these sorts of ideas are knocking around.

And in the end, who can actually provide the security against that? It is the Conservatives, because in many parts of Europe, the monarchy still retain control of the armed forces. So that's take up Tim Lanning's point, Lucy, Lucy Aran. It was the monarchy, Solomon flipped, flitted away, but the monarchy, the establishment, they got the armies and they took control and it was that did it. They just got reorganised very quite quickly really and turned on these revolutionaries. Yeah, I mean on one level they'd suffered

no more than a kind of temporary loss of nerve in early 1848 and they got their nerve back and they set about reconquering Europe but actually I'm not sure I entirely agree with what's been said in the sense that I think there were actually kind of examples of really quite strong and heroic resistance by the revolutions to the reconquest by

conservatives, notably in southern Germany, and particularly in Rome in 1849 and in Venice. And I think that that resistance is extremely important, in part because it shows to the rest of the world how repressive these governments are. And I think it kind of strikes a blow against these regimes, nevertheless, from which they never recover. I mean, it gives them a bad name.

If we look at the newspaper reporting, from the Roman Republic in the summer of 1849. Again and again and again, it's being said, you know, the Pope is repressive. The Pope doesn't care for his people. The Pope is bombarding his own people. This is not the future of Europe as we want it. So I think it actually, in some respects,

this repression that we've been talking about, this failure in some ways discredits the Conservatives and actually gives a lot of kudos and an air of heroism to the revolutionaries despite the failure. Yeah, but in real politics, if I might use that word, the fact is repressive governments came back more repressive than they'd been before and held on for quite a while.

Yes, they did. You're going to talk about lasting effects and so on, but the first effects for a generation, 25 for 30 years, was bad for those who, for the people in the mass. Yes, I wouldn't put it quite as long as that. I don't think the Times held quite as long. If we can take the Habsburg Empire where the repression was at its greatest, there was really very serious repression in Hungary in 1849.

And there they try to rule after 1849 in a neo-absolutist way. That's actually what it was called, noo absolutism. But it collapses. They can't work it by the end of the 1850s just within 10 years. It's falling apart. They cannot run a state of that complexity without some degree of popular support and legitimacy. And so by 1859, 1860, the whole thing is falling apart again.

So, Mike, Mike report, can you tell us briefly what were the positive outcomes of this revolution? Well, there are positive outcomes. I mean, first of all, the abolition of serfdom in central and eastern Europe, outside Russia and Poland and Romania. But serfdom where it exists gets abolished. In the French colonies, there's the abolition of slavery. That emancipates 150,000 people. There are constitutions do survive in two key states, Prussia and Piedmont.

Those are the two states which lead the drug. drive for unification in Germany and Italy respectively. And also you get a mobilisation of people, I mean the myth of the revolution, if you like, and these things are remembered. And you get the entry of people into politics, often for the very first time, particularly in central and eastern Europe. The idea of the masses cannot be ignored, Lucie, is now part of the political sphere. Absolutely right. I mean, it creates a model of political participation that in some respects is still with us. Street demonstrations, a journalism in exactly the way,

in which in many ways we still see it today. I think all of this is really created by the 1848-49 revolutions to no small extent. Also, last year, when they celebrated 160 years of the unification of Italy, what does the Italian president actually chose to emphasize? He chooses to emphasize the Roman Republic of 1849. And so it creates this very lasting memory, of popular participation, which I think is extremely important.

And last word, Timbler? The most important effect result of 1848 was the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as president of the French Republic in December 1848. That led to the Crimean War. It led to the unification of Italy and led to the unification of Germany and to defeat of France in 1870.

That's quite a lot of we going on with. Well, we have said quite a lot of being quite exhausted. I've been around Europe with three brilliant people in 1848. I shall quietly re-enter. What are we, 2012? Thank you very much, Lucy Ryle, Tim Blanning and Mike Report. Next week we'll be talking about the scientific method. Thank you for listening.

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